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The  Crime 


Against  the  School  Child 

BY 

CM  AS.  M.  HIGGINS 


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INDEX 

Page 

Introduction — The  Fundamental  Legal  and  Medical  Fact  Against  All  Com- 
pulsory Vaccination  3 

The  New  School  Vaccination  Law,  Now  in  Force  in  New  York  State, 
Different  for  City  and  Country 5 

Mr.  Loyster’s  Peculiar  Work  in  the  Passage  of  This  Law.  Compulsion 
Removed  From  His  Own  Country  Schools  and  Put  on  All  Our  City 
Schools  with  Double  Pay  for  the  Vaccinators 7 

Political  Cowardice  and  Medical  Craft  in  Passage  of  This  Law  Which  Places 
Compulsory  Vaccination  on  All  Schools  in  the  Ten  Leading  Cities  of 
the  State  and  Removes  it  from  the  Small  Towns  and  Country  Dis- 
tricts   7 

Mr.  Loyster’s  Remarkable  Pamphlet  Showing  the  Death  of  His  Own  Boy 
and  Many  Other  Children  From  Vaccination  in  1914 7 

Smallpox  Ten  Times  More  Frequent  in  Country  Than  City.  Absurdity 
and  Illegality  of  the  Loyster  Law  Shown 10 

How  to  Legally  Evade  and  Defeat  the  New  Law 10 

First  Defense:  Doctor’s  Certificate  of  Danger  to  Health  or  Life  now  Ac- 
cepted in  Schools  Under  Rule  of  Department  of  Education 10 

Deaths  of  30  Children  From  Vaccination  in  1914 11 

The  Greatest  Sin  in  the  Moral  Code  Committed  by  Vaccinators.  Denying 
Danger  and  Death  from  Vaccination.  Impugning  the  Known  Truth 11 

Second  Defense:  (For  City  Parents)  Change  Residence  to  Country 12 

Third  Defense:  Private  Schools  and  Constitutional  Rights 12 

Compulsory  Vaccination  Legally  a Crime.  Court  Decisions  Cited 12 

Fourth  Defense:  Criminal  Prosecution  of  Vaccinators  Under  Common  Law 
and  Penal  Code 13 

Fifth  Defense:  No  Legal  Power  Exists  to  Compel  Vaccination 14 

Vaccination  Law  Conflicts  with  Education  Law  and  District  School 
Officers  Have  Power  to  Suspend  Vaccination  Law  and  Admit  Un- 
vaccinated Children,  According  to  Decision  of  Department  of  Edu- 
cation by  Commissioner  Draper  in  1912 14 

No  Law  in  the  State  to  Compel  Vaccination.  Decision  of  State  Courts  and 
U.  S.  Supreme  Court  Given 14 

Decision  of  Court  of  Appeals  in  Ekerold  Case  Explained.  A Law  Exists 
to  compel  Education  of  Children  But  No  Law  Exists  to  Compel  Vac- 
cination of  Children  or  to  Fine  Parents  for  Failure  to  Vaccinate 15 

Decision  of  Commissioner  Draper  of  Department  of  Education  in  the  Case 
of  the  Town  of  Olean  in  1912.  Legal  Discretion  to  Suspend  Vaccin- 
tion  Exists  in  All  Local  School  Officers 16 

Re-Vaccination  Illegal.  One  Vaccination  Sufficient 17 

Vital  Legal  Point:  Education  When  Paid  for  Is  a “Right”  and  Not  a 
“Privilege.”  Decisions  of  Our  Courts  Cited 17 


5 


Deaths  from  Vaccination  Greater  than  Deaths  from  Smallpox.  Shocking 
Figures  Given  by  Registrar-General  of  England 19 

Public  Rebuke  and  Challenge  Given  to  Our  Vaccinating  Doctors  and  Health 
Officials  Who  Deny  and  Conceal  Deaths  from  Vaccination 19 

Compulsory  Vaccination  Not  Necessary  to  Prevent  Smallpox.  Sanitation 
and  Hygiene  More  Important  and  Effective 20 

The  Leicester  Method.  Preventing  Smallpox  Without  Vaccination.  In 
Use  for  Over  Thirty  Years  in  the  Model  Sanitary  and  Manufacturing 
City  of  Leicester,  England 21 

A Most  Important  Point:  Vaccination  Admittedly  Spreads  and  Increases 
Smallpox 22 

Our  Ten  New  York  Cities  of  First  and  Second  Classes,  Upon  which  Com- 
pulsory Vaccination  Is  Now  Placed,  Compared  to  Unvaccinated  Lei- 
cester   23 

Voluntary  Vaccination  Not  Opposed  by  Our  League 24 

Highest  Medical  Authority  Today  Opposed  to  Compulsion 24 

Recapitulation  of  Legal  Defenses  Against  Compulsory  Vaccination 25 

Compelling  Vaccination  by  Force  or  Intimidation  a Crime  Under  Penal 
Code  and  Decisions  of  Our  Courts.  Caution  to  Parents  and  School 
Officers  and  Warning  to  Vaccinators,  Doctors  and  Health  Officers....  25 

Civil  Damage  Suits.  Verdicts  Given  by  Our  Courts  Against  Doctors  and 
Health  Officers  for  Coercive  Vaccinations 26 

Conclusion.  How  to  Assert  Legal  Rights  and  Defeat  All  Compulsory 
Vaccination  26 

Officers  of  the  Anti-Vaccination  League  of  America 27 

Full  Text  of  the  Loyster-Tallett  Vaccination  Law  Now  in  Force  in  New 
York  State 28 

The  Loyster  Law  Legally  and  Logically  Analyzed.  Points  for  Lawyers  and 
Laymen  Showing  This  Law  to  Be  Illegal  and  Non-Enforceable 30 

First  Point:  Illegal  Discrimination  Against  Large  Cities  and  in  Favor  of 
Country  Districts  Which  Are  Most  Subject  to  Smallpox 30 

Second  Point:  Illegal  and  Excessive  Penalty 30 

Third  Point:  Vaccination  Cannot  Be  Legally  Forced  Exclusively  on  One 
Special  Class  or  Part  of  the  Population,  Such  as  School  Children,  With- 
out Any  Special  Reason  or  Justification 31 

School  Children  Most  Vital,  and  Immune  Part  of  the  Population  with 
Lowest  Death  Rate,  Only  Five  Per  Cent,  of  Total  Deaths,  While  Form- 
ing Twenty-five  Per  Cent,  of  the  Population 32 

School  Age  Most  Immune  to  Smallpox.  Record  of  Last  Epidemic  Shown. . 33 

Relative  Dangers  from  Smallpox,  Lightning  and  Lockjaw.  Vaccination  and 
Lockjaw  More  Dangerous  Than  Smallpox,  and  Smallpox  Less  Danger- 
ous Than  Lightning! 35 

Vaccination  for  Voters  Suggested  Instead  of  for  School  Children.  Voting 
Ages  Five  Times  More  Subject  to  Smallpox  Than  School  Age 35 

Fourth  Point:  The  Theory  That  Vaccination  Prevents  Smallpox,  Whether 
Right  or  Wrong,  Does  Not  Justify  Any  Law  Which  Forces  Vaccination 
Arbitrarily  and  Unreasonably  on  One  Class  Only  of  the  Population, 
viz.,  On  the  School  Children  Who  Are  Naturally  Least  Subject  to 
Smallpox  36 


Page 


Fifth  Point:  Inflicting  a Wound  and  Disease  Coercively  on  the  Human 
Body  Is  an  Illegal  and  Criminal  Act 38 

All  Vaccination  Potentially  Dangerous  or  Deadly  and  Cannot  Be  Legally 
Forced  on  Any  Person.  Decision  of  Supreme  Court  of  U.  S.  Cited...  38 

Sixth  Point:  False  Doctrine  of  “Police  Power”  to  Inflict  Disease  or  Death 
in  the  False  Name  of  “Public  Health” 39 

Inherent  and  Constitutional  Rights  of  the  People  Superior  to  All  Police 
Power  of  the  Legislature  Which  Cannot  Invade  These  Rights 39 

Seventh  Point:  Several  Constitutional  Provisions  Invaded  by  the  Loyster 
Law  40 

Proposition  First:  Right  of  Healthy  Child  to  Education  and  Right  of  Parent 
to  Educate  Child  Inherent  and  Unalienable 41 

Proposition  Second:  To  Force  a Wound  and  Dangerous  Disease  on  the 
Human  Body  Is  Absolutely  Illegal  and  Criminal 42 

Eighth  Point:  Illegal  Medical  Graft  in  Double  Compensation  to  Health 
Officers  as  Found  in  the  Loyster  Law  Renders  It  Invalid  Under  Article 
3 of  the  Constitution 42 

Ninth  Point:  Other  Possible  Medical  Graft  in  Exclusive  Use  of  Special 
Virus  Makes  Law  Vicious  and  Doubtful 43 

Tenth  Point:  Only  One  Good  Feature  of  the  Loyster  Law,  Record  of  Vac- 
cinations to  Be  Able  to  Trace  and  Suppress  Dangerous  Viruses ,A3 

The  Lockjaw  Lie,  and  Dr.  Anderson’s  Report,  Answered.  Five  Children 
Killed  in  One  Week 45 

Letter  to  Mr.  Loyster  from  Mr.  Higgins  Exposing  the  Evils  of  the  Loyster 
Law  46 


Death  of  the  Stillwaggon  Boy  from  Vaccination  Cited  as  an  Example  of 
Many  Others.  Vaccinators  Who  Kill  Children  Compared  to  President 
McKinley’s  Assassin.  Absurdity  and  Worthlessness  of  Their  “Reports” 
on  Such  Deaths  Demonstrated  Warning  Against  This  Child  Slaughter 


as  Being  a Crime  Under  the  Penal  Code 46 

Endangering  Health  or  Life  of  a Child  a Crime  Under  Penal  Code,  Sec- 
tion 483 46 

The  Loyster  Bill  Analyzed  and  Condemned 47 

Mir.  Loyster’s  Answer.  His  Full  Responsibility  for  the  Evil  Law  Admitted  49 

A Few  Words  for  Mr.  Loyster  and  His  Colleagues,  Bringing  This  Re- 
sponsibility Home  to  Them 50 


Gigantic  Medical  Interests  Behind  Our  Vaccination  Laws  Shown.  The 
Most  Dangerous  Power  in  Body  Politic.  Figures  Given  on  Vaccine 
Makers  and  Medical  Societies  to  Show  the  Dangerous  Power  Behind 
Our  Vaccination  Laws,  Influencing  Our  Legislature  and  Controlling 
Policy  of  Our  Health  Departments  Against  Best  Interest  of  Public..  51 

Letter  to  Governor  Whitman  Asking  Veto  of  Loyster-Tallett  Bill  and 
Exposing  Its  Evil  Nature  and  Improper  Means  Used  in  Its  Passage. ...  54 

Sinister  Facts  in  Canvass  and  Passage  of  This  Bill  Exposed  and  Con- 
demned. Letters  of  Legislators  Given 54-59 

The  Hearing  Before  the  Governor,  March  29th,  1915 56 

Governor  Whitman’s  Mistake,  Deferring  to  Health  Commissioners  Inter- 
ested in  Vaccination  What  He  Should  Have  Decided  Himself  as  an 
Impartial  Judge  or  Jury  on  the  Facts  Submitted 59 


Page 

New  Law  Suggested  for  Repeal  and  Prohibition  of  All  Compulsory  Vac- 
cination   61 

Other  Reforms  Suggested  for  Attention  of  Parents  and  School  Officers. ...  62 


(1)  Remonstrance  to  State  Department  of  Education  for  Its  Blind  Accept- 

ance of  Gross  M'edical  Falsehoods  Relating  to  Smallpox  and  Vaccina- 
tion and  for  Failing  to  Protect  Our  Two  Millions  of  School  Children 
from  the  Fatal  Dangers  of  the  Medical  Malpractices  Which  Are  Now 
Improperly  Forced  on  Our  Public  Schools  with  Great  Injury  to  Health 
and  Life  of  School  Children 62 

(2)  Suggested  Criticism  of  Deputy  Commissioner  Finegan  for  His  Woeful 

Mistake  in  Forcing  Vaccination  Coercively  on  Our  Schools  Against 
Discretion  of  Local  School  Officers  and  in  Violation  of  Decision  of 
Commissioner  Draper,  Which  Has  Caused  Deaths  of  30  or  More 
School  Children  in  1914 62 

(3)  Question  of  Legal  Responsibility  of  Department  of  Education  or  State 

Government  for  Deaths  of  Children  Killed  by  These  Illegal  Acts  of 
Coercive  Vaccination  Ordered  and  Performed  by  State  Officials 63 

(4)  Proposed  Act  of  Legislature  to  Indemnify  Parents  for  Destruction  of 

Health  or  Loss  of  Life  of  Children  Killed  by  Vaccination  Improperly 
Forced  Upon  Them  by  Agents  of  the  State 63 

(5)  Proposed  Criminal  Prosecution  of  Doctors  or  Health  Officers  for 

Fatal  Vaccinations  Inflicted  on  School  Children  Under  False  Repre- 
sentation of  Actual  Necessity  and  Perfect  Safety 63 


(6)  Suggested  Public  Investigation  of  Our  Health  Departments  to  Expose 

Denials  and  Concealments  of  Deaths  from  Vaccination  and  to  Disclose 
the  Amount  of  Medical  Graft  in  Practice  of  Vaccination  and  Sale  of 
Virus  in  the  State,  Cities,  Towns  and  School  Districts,  and  to  Show 
Who  Get  the  Pay  for  This  Large  and  Needless  Expenditure  of  Public 
Monies  63 

(7)  Proposed  New  Law  to  Remove  Doctors  and  Members  of  Medical 

Societies  from  Heads  of  Our  Departments  of  Health  and  Vital  Sta- 
tistics and  to  Put  Able  Laymen  in  Their  Places,  in  Best  Interest  of 
the  Public,  as  Is  Now  the  Practice  in  England 63 

Protest  of  Parents  to  Board  of  Regents  and  Department  of  Education....  64 


INTRODUCTION : 


THE  FUNDAMENTAL  LEGAL  AND  MEDICAL  FACT  AGAINST 
ALL  COMPULSORY  VACCINATION 

The  Public  Letter  of  Advice  to  a parent  of  school  children  forming 
the  first  part  of  this  pamphlet,  as  well  as  the  supplement  forming  the 
final  part,  are  both  specially  addressed  to  parents  and  school  officers 
in  our  own  State  of  New  York  and  this  address  is  intended  to  be  an 
exhaustive  consideration  of  our  new  school  vaccination  law,  passed  in 
1915  and'  now  in  force  in  this  State,  known  as  the  Loyster-Tallett  Law, 
with  the  special  purpose  of  showing  the  evil  and  illegal  features  of  this 
particular  law  and  the  legal  defenses  by  which  its  enforcement  in  our 
schools  may  be  frustrated,  or  on  which  it  may  be  wholly  invalidated  in 
our  courts  if  tested  there. 

The  advices  given  and  defenses  suggested  in  this  pamphlet  are, 
however,  not  confined  to  the  vaccination  law  now  in  force  in  New 
York  State,  but  apply  equally  in  all  other  States  where  similar  laws 
attempt  to  force  vaccination  in  any  form  on  any  section  of  the  people 
against  free  will  and  consent  or  as  a condition  for  the  exercise  of  any 
inherent  or  fundamental  right  of  the  citizen  or  his  child. 

The  fundamental  legal  and  medical  facts  now  set  forth  in  these 
advices  and  defenses  may  be  briefly  epitomized  here  by  stating  that  all 
compulsory  vaccination  is  essentially  illegal  and  criminal  in  its  very 
nature  from  a truly  logical,  legal  and  constitutional  basis,  and  cannot  be 
validly  forced  on  any  person,  for  the  reasons  expressed  in  these  simple 
propositions : 

First:  No  valid  law  can  be  based  on  what  is  essentially  and  demon- 
strably a falsehood,  but  must  be  based  on  actual  truth. 

Now  all  compulsory  vaccination  law  is  based  on  this  triple  false- 
hood, viz.,  that  compulsory  vaccination  of  a part  or  the  whole  of  the 
population  is  necessary  to  prevent  smallpox  epidemics,  that  nothing  else 
prevents  smallpox  epidemics  but  general  vaccination,  and  that  vaccina- 
tion is  perfectly  safe  and  harmless  and  never  causes  injury  or  death. 
All  of  these  propositions  are  absolutely  and  demonstrably  false,  and 
therefore  any  law  based  on  them  is  absolutely  invalid. 

3 


Second:  To  inflict  a bodily  wound  on  any  person,  forcibly  or 
against  the  will  of  that  person,  and  to  inoculate  into  that  wound  an 
infectious  disease  which  may  infect  the  whole  body  and  destroy  health 
or  life,  as  occurs  in  the  act  of  vaccination,  is  an  illegal  and  criminal 
act  in  fact  and  law  under  the  simplest  fundamental  principles  of  com- 
mon law,  statute  law  and  constitutional  guarantees;  and  any  law  allow- 
ing or  authorizing  such  an  act  is,  of  course,  absolutely  invalid. 

Third:  The  medical  profession,  interested  in  vaccination,  constantly 
represents  that  this  medical  and  surgical  operation  known  as  vaccination 
is  actually  necessary  for  the  health  of  school  children  and  is  perfectly 
safe  and  harmless  for  them  and  never  causes  injury  or  death.  This 
false  representation  greatly  aggravates  the  legal  offense  of  the  coercive 
vaccinator  and  the  crime  of  forced  vaccination,  because  for  any  doctor 
to  represent  and  recommend  to  a patient  a surgical  operation  like  vac- 
cination as  actually  necessary  to  his  health  and  perfectly  safe  and  harm- 
less, which  is  not  at  all  necessary  for  health  and  which  is  essentially 
and  potentially  dangerous  and  deadly  in  every  case  and  now  actually 
kills  more  children  than  smallpox,  is  in  itself  obviously  a grave  medical 
malpractice  and  is  believed  to  be  actually  a positive  crime  under  our 
present  laws  and  indictable  and  punishable  as  such. 

Under  these  fundamental  legal  and  medical  facts,  therefore,  which 
we  believe  to  be  impregnable  as  a matter  of  legal,  medical  and  statistical 
demonstration,  no  parent  of  school  children  or  local  or  general  school 
officer,  high  or  low,  in  this  State  or  other  states,  need  pay  any  atten- 
tion to  any  attempt  to  force  compulsory  vaccination  upon  them,  except 
to  denounce  it  as  a form  of  child  slaughter,  medical  barbarism  and  legal 
crime,  and  refuse  to  have  any  of  the  children  in  their  charge  forcibly 
vaccinated  or  excluded  from  school  or  denied  their  fundamental  right 
to  education  and  to  health;  but  parents  and  school  officers  must  insist 
upon  the  free  legal  right  to  education  for  every  healthy  child  in  this 
State  without  having  first  to  endanger  its  health  or  life  by  compulsory 
disease,  as  fully  set  forth  in  the  advices  and  defenses  given  in  this 
pamphlet. 

CHAS.  M.  HIGGINS, 

Member  of  Anti-Vaccination  League  and  League  for  Medical  Freedom. 

271  Ninth  St,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

October  4,  1915. 


4 


The  Crime  Against  the  School  Child. 

An  Expose  of  the  New  Loyster-Tallett  Law  in  the  State  of  New 
York  which  Now  Forces  Compulsory  Vaccination  on  Every  School , 
Public  and  Private,  in  the  Ten  Leading  Cities  in  the  State,  viz.,  New 
York,  f Buffalo , [ Rochester , Syracuse , Albany,  Yonkers,  Schenectady , 
Utica,  Troy  and  Binghampton,  but  Removes  it  [ From  the  Country 
Districts. 

How  Our  Country  Politicians,  in  a Deal  with  Medical  Interests  in 
the  State,  Put  Compulsion  More  Heavily  on  Our  Big  Cities  but  Took  it 
Off  their  Own  Country  Districts,  and  How  the  State  Commissioner  of 
Health  Saved  His  Own  Official  Head  in  the  Deal. 

How  to  Legally  Defeat  this  Evil  Law  Shown. 

Vital  Points  for  Lawyers  and  Laymen. 

Note. — This  letter  of  advice  to  one  inquiring  parent  is  now  pub- 
lished as  an  open  public  letter  for  the  benefit  of  other  parents  of 
school  children  and  for  all  school  officers  in  the  State  and  for  the 
public  generally. 

Mr.  Leroy  A.  Mershon, 

55  Cedar  Street, 

New  York  City. 

Dear  Sir: 

Your  letter  of  August  17th  was  duly  received  but  was  not  answered 
before  this  on  account  of  absence  from  town. 

THE  NEW  VACCINATION  LAW  FOR  CITY  AND  COUNTRY. 

I note  that  you  wish  to  get  your  boy  admitted  to  public  school  No. 
152  in  Flatbush  in  the  Borough  of  Brooklyn  without  vaccination,  which 
you  strongly  object  to.  I understand  that  the  boy  has  never  been  vac- 
cinated but  has  heretofore  attended  the  Staten  Island  Academy  in  the 
Borough  of  Richmond,  which  I believe  is  a private  school,  where  vac- 
cination was  not  required  under  the  old  law,  which  applied  to  public 
schools  only.  This  year,  however,  a new  law  was  passed  known  as  the 
“Loyster-Tallett  Law/’  which  is  much  worse  than  the  old  law  and 
applies  to  all  schools,  public  and  private,  in  this  State.  It  is  called  the 
Loyster-Tallett  Law  because  it  was  drawn  by  Mr.  James  A.  Loyster 
of  Cazenovia,  Madison  County,  in  consultation  with  the  State  Depart- 

5 


ment  of  Health,  and  apparently  to  suit  this  department  and  other 
medical  interests,  and  it  was  introduced  in  the  Legislature  by  Mr. 
Loyster's  local  representatives,  Assemblyman  Tallett  of  Madison  County 
and  Senator  Jones  of  Chenango  County.  Notwithstanding  vigorous  op- 
position to  this  evil  law  from  different  parts  of  the  State,  it  was  finally 
passed  under  the  false  representation  that  it  did  not  apply  to  New  York 
City  at  all,  and  many  of  our  legislators  from  New  York  City  actually 
voted  for  it,  being  misled  by  this  false  idea  by  somebody,  whereas  this 
law  applies  particularly  to  New  York  and  to  the  four  other  big  cities  in 
the  State,  viz.,  Albany,  Syracuse,  Rochester  and  Buffalo,  as  well  as  to 
the  five  smaller  cities  of  the  second  class,  viz.,  Yonkers,  Schenectady, 
Utica,  Troy  and  Binghampton,  making  vaccination  necessary  for  admis- 
sion to  any  school,  public  or  private,  in  any  of  these,  ten  cities  which 
contain  two-thirds  of  the  population  of  the  whole  State;  while  in  the 
country  districts  in  all  the  rest  of  the  State  outside  of  these  ten  big 
cities  children  can  be  freely  admitted  without  vaccination  unless  a case 
of  smallpox  should  some  time  arise  in  the  town  or  district,  when  the 
unvaccinated  children  may  be  excluded,  but  not  until  then. 

This  peculiar  Loyster-Tallett- Jones  Law  is  obviously  another  glar- 
ing instance  where  the  country  politicians  seem  to  control  the  making 
of  laws  for  New  York  City;  and  in  this  shameful  piece  of  medical 
legislation  the  country  politicians  seem  to  have  actually  succeeded  in 
making  a deal  with  some  medical  interests  in  the  State,  which  seem 
to  control  our  legislation,  to  take  compulsory  vaccination  off  the  schools 
in  their  own  country  districts  for  the  price  of  inflicting  it  more  heavily 
than  ever  on  the  big  cities  of  the  State  where  the  profit  to  the  vaccine 
and  medical  interests  will  be  obviously  greater.  Another  feature  that 
seemed  to  figure  in  this  deal  relates  to  the  status  of  State  Health  Com- 
missioner Biggs  himself,  against  whom  a special  bill  was  introduced  to 
legislate  him  out  of  office  for  the  alleged  reason  that  he  gave  only  a 
part  of  his  time  to  the  public  business  of  the  State  and  most  of  his 
time  to  his  own  private  practice,  at  the  big  salary  of  $8,000  per  year. 
This  bill  was  introduced  by  Mr.  Hinman  of  Albany  in  the  Assembly, 
March  23rd,  and  provided  that  the  Health  Commissioner  must  give  all 
his  time  to  the  business  of  the  State,  and  it  was  passed  unanimously  on 
April  8th  without  a dissenting  vote,  but  was  not  forced  in  the  Senate 
for  some  reason  which  the  country  politicians  can  tell  us  if  they  will. 
Coincidentally  Commissioner  Biggs  approved  the  bill  of  the  country 
politicians  to  take  compulsion  off  their  own  country  schools  but  to  put 
it  heavier  on  all  the  city  schools,  although  this  bill  was  strongly  opposed 
by  the  medical  societies  of  the  State  who  are  opposed  to  any  relaxation 

6 


of  the  dangerous  but  profitable  practice  of  vaccination  in  either  city  or 
country.  Nevertheless  the  country  politicians  got  their  bill  through,  tak- 
ing compulsory  vaccination  off  their  own  country  schools,  and  Com- 
missioner Biggs  saved  his  official  head  by  the  defeat  of  the  bill  to  make 
him  either  resign  or  give  all  his  official  time  to  the  business  of  the 
State,  for  which  he  is  so  well  paid.  I make  no  comment  on  these  legis- 
lative, medical  and  political  facts,  which  seem  to  speak  clearly  for  them- 
selves and  show  how  some  of  our  laws  are  made  and  what  influences 
sometimes  determine  their  passage  and  what  a dangerous  grip  the  medi- 
cal powers — the  most  dangerous  in  our  body  politic — now  have  on  the 
people  of  this  State  to  be  able  to  dictate  or  determine  our  laws,  as  will 
hereafter  more  fully  appear. 

MR.  LOYSTER’ S PECULIAR  WORKMAN  ANY  ONE 
EXPLAIN  IT? 

Mr.  Loyster,  who  seems  to  be  quite  something  of  a country  poli- 
tician himself,  being  a member  of  the  State  Republican  Committee,  and 
evidently  having  considerable  political  influence  in  the  Legislature, 
excused  the  passage  of  this  shameful  and  cowardly  law  on  the  ground 
that  it  was  the  only  concession  he  could  force  from  this  dangerous  medi- 
cal power  which,  as  I have  just  said,  seems  to  have  such  a sinister  grip 
on  the  legislature  and  people  of  this  State. 

POLITICAL  COWARDICE  AND  MEDICAL  CRAFT. 

That  it  was  a most  cowardly  piece  of  political  work,  whoever  was 
responsible  for  it,  to  be  satisfied  with  getting  the  evil  of  compulsory 
disease  taken  off  the  country  schools  in  their  own  political  districts  for 
the  price  of  putting  it  heavier  on  all  the  schools,  public  and  private,  in 
all  the  big  cities  of  the  State  and  for  the  further  price  of  giving  the  vac- 
cinating doctors  double  pay  for  this  evil  work,  is  so  obvious  and  “raw” 
in  its  moral  and  political  ugliness  that  it  needs  no  further  comment  here. 
But  perhaps  there  was  some  special  reason  for  this  peculiar  piece  of 
work,  which  some  of  our  politicians  can  explain  to  us  if  they  will. 

MR.  LOYSTER’S  PAMPHLET. 

Now  with  regard  to  Mr.  Loyster,  it  must  be  specially  noted  that 
this  intelligent  man  was  a most  grievous  sufferer  himself  from  the  medi- 
cal crime  of  compulsory  vaccination,  having  lost  his  own  precious  boy 

7 


through  this  medical  evil  last  summer,  and  he  has  since  published  a 
striking  pamphlet  as  a memorial  to  his  lost  boy,  showing  the  deaths  of 
about  thirty  children  from  coercive  vaccination  in  this  State  in  1914. 
A copy  of  this  remarkable  pamphlet  will  be  mailed  upon  request,  ac- 
companied by  ten  cents  to  cover  costs  of  printing  and  postage.  The 
title  of  this  pamphlet  is  “Vaccination  Results  in  New  York  State  in 
1914/'  and  it  is  illustrated  with  photographs  of  many  children  killed  by 
vaccination  in  this  State  in  the  great  vaccination  raid  of  1914  improp- 
erly forced  upon  the  schools  of  the  State  by  the  Department  of  Educa- 
tion under  the  illegal  dictation  of  the  Department  of  Health. 

In  this  pamphlet  Mr.  Loyster  shows  what  our  League  has  been 
impressing  on  the  public  for  years,  that  vaccination  is  killing  more 
children  than  smallpox  and  is  now  not  only  more  dangerous  than  small- 
pox, but  is  quite  needless  as  an  alleged  remedy  for  its  prevention.  In 
his  "conclusions”  he  manfully  took  the  same  ground  that  we  have  been 
urging  for  years,  demanding  the  complete  repeal  of  all  compulsion  as 
the  following  extracts  from  his  pamphlet  will  show,  viz. : 

(1)  “Vaccination  has  been  the  cause,  directly  or  indirectly,  of 
the  death  of  at  least  fifty  children  in  New  York  State  in  1914.” 

(4)  “Vaccination  of  children  is  wrong  in  principle,  is  not  in 
harmony  with  the  trend  of  the  best  medical  practice  and  should  be 
abandoned.” 

(8)  “A  new  section  of  the  Public  Health  Law  should  be  enacted 
which  should  provide  for  the  repeal  of  compulsory  vaccination  as  a pre- 
requisite for  an  education.” 

Notwithstanding  this  clear  re-echo  of  the  principles  of  our  League 
from  a man  who  is  not  a member  of  it,  and,  shameful  and  strange  to 
say,  this  man  drew  up  a bill  in  connection  with  the  State  Departments 
of  Health  and  Education  which  violated  every  one  of  these  principles 
and  gave  this  bill  to  his  local  legislators  to  introduce,  using  all  his  own 
political  influence  to  rush  it  through  the  legislature.  This  shocking 
bill,  as  first  drawn,  instead  of  reducing  or  repealing  compulsion,  actu- 
ally gave  the  medical  interests  everything  they  had  been  trying  to  get 
for  years  past  and  which  our  League  had  so  far  prevented,  viz. : 

(1)  Compulsory  vaccination  on  every  school  child  in  the  State, 
public  and  private. 

(2)  Forced  vaccination  of  every  school  child  repeated  every  year! 

(3)  It  changed  the  discretionary  enforcement  of  the  law  from  the 
school  officers  who  have  no  pecuniary  interest  in  vaccination,  as  in  the 

8 


old  law,  to  the  mandatory  enforcement  of  the  health  officers  having 
a direct  pecuniary  interest  in  this  enforcement ; and, 

(4)  It  actually  gave  the  vaccinating  doctors  extra  or  double  pay 
for  every  vaccination  performed,  as  you  will  note  in  paragraph  3 of  this 
law  annexed,  which  is  in  gross  violation  of  the  State  Constitution, 
Article  III,  Section  28.  This  remarkable  piece  of  medical  craft  and 
graft  was  probably  either  the  result  of  Mr.  Loyster’s  own  innocent  ideas 
or  the  crafty  work  of  the  medical  or  vaccination  interests  in  this  State 
into  which  he  was  unconsciously  misled  by  his  unfamiliarity  with  and 
newness  in  this  whole  subject.  After  drawing  this  bill  he  submitted  it 
to  us  for  approval  and  actually  had  the  simplicity  or  effrontery  to  expect 
that  the  members  of  our  League  were  such  fools,  cowards,  stultifiers  and 
traitors  that  we  could  be  expected  to  co-operate  with  him  in  the  ad- 
vancement of  such  a stupid  and  dangerous  measure  instead  of  fighting 
against  it  to  the  end  as  representing  every  evil  against  which  we  had 
been  working  steadily  for  years  and  as  a complete  surrender  to  the 
advocates  of  medical  compulsion  of  everything  for  which  they  had  been 
long  striving  and  which  they  now  get  in  this  Loyster  Law.  We  there- 
fore believe  that  for  a,  man  of  Mr.  Loyster’s  intelligence,  with  his  ex- 
perience of  acute  suffering  from  vaccination  and  his  evident  political 
influence  in  the  State,  that  for  him  to  have  drawn  and  advocated  any 
such  bill,  or  to  work  for  or  accept  any  reform  less  than  a full  repeal  of 
all  compulsory  vaccination,  which  by  his  own  showing  killed  his  own 
son  and  forty  or  fifty  other  children  in  the  State  in  one  year,  was 
nothing  less  than  a most  contemptible  piece  of  political  cowardice  which 
makes  a most  shocking  anti-climax  to  his  remarkable  pamphlet  and  a 
most  sinister  monument  to  his  martyred  boy,  which  must  forever  haunt 
and  mock  at  him  for  the  rest  of  his  life  unless  he  immediately  repents 
of  this  mistake  by  working  for  the  absolute  repeal  of  the  present  shame- 
ful law  at  the  earliest  possible  moment. 

From  what  has  been  already  shown  it  is  almost  needless  to  now 
say  that  such  a law  as  I have  just  described — the  present  Loyster- 
Tallett-Jones  Law — is  a moral  crime  on  the  people  of  this  State  and  is, 
I believe,  clearly  illegal  and  unconstitutional  on  broad  legislative  prin- 
ciples, but,  of  course,  it  will  take  a great  deal  of  hard  work  and  much 
expense  to  defeat  such  laws  in  our  courts,  no  matter  how  bad  they  are, 
a work  which  I presume  men  like  yourself  are  not  anxious  to  tackle 
or  able  to  undertake. 

I enclose  one  of  my  pamphlets,  “A  Heart  to  Heart  Talk/’  which 
will  show  you  how  our  League  has  fought  this  evil  law  to  the  very 
end.  It  was  finally  passed,  however,  and  signed  by  the  Governor  about 

9 


April  1st,  with  a serious  change  which  we  helped  to  compel,  viz.,  cutting 
out  the  condition  for  vaccination  every  year,  but  the  evil  of  separate  laws 
for  city  and  country  districts  was  added,  which,  backed  by  the  country 
politicians  and  the  State  Department  of  Health,  we  were  not  able  to  de- 
feat but  which  will  yet  kill  this  law  in  our  courts,  if  not  repealed  before 
this  legal  test  is  made,  as  this  arbitrary  local  discrimination  against  the 
cities  makes  this  enactment  an  illegal  class  law  and  not  a “law  of  the 
land.” 

SMALLPOX  TEN  TIMES  MORE  FREQUENT  IN  COUNTRY 

THAN  CITY 

The  alleged  reason  for  taking  rigid  compulsion  off  the  country  dis- 
tricts and  putting  it  on  the  cities  was  the  false  and  stupid  reason  that 
smallpox  is  less  frequent  in  the  country  than  in  the  city,  whereas  the 
very  reverse  is  the  fact,  smallpox  being  actually  more  of  a country  dis- 
ease than  a city  disease  and  being  usually  from  five  to  twenty  times 
more  frequent  in  the  country  than  in  the  city.  For  example,  in  1914  the 
total  number  of  smallpox  cases  in  our  whole  State  of  ten  millions  was 
791  with  only  3 deaths!  The  3 deaths  were  all  in  the  districts 
outside  of  the  5 big  cities;  and  only  24  of  these  cases  occurred  in  New 
York  City,  with  over  half  the  population  of  the  State,  and  only  41  of  the 
791  cases  occurred  in  the  ten  leading  cities,  containing  two-thirds  of  the 
whole  population  of  the  State.  On  the  other  hand,  749  cases  occurred 
in  the  country  districts,  having  only  one-third  of  the  total  population, 
or  nearly  thirty  times  the  absolute  number  in  New  York  City  or  sixty 
times  the  relative  number!  This  remarkable  showing  of  statistical  facts 
is  sufficient  proof  of  the  folly  and  falseness  of  our  vaccination  laws 
and  the  gross  ignorance  or  dishonesty  of  some  of  their  advocates  or 
promoters  and  beneficiaries. 

HOW  TO  LEGALLY  EVADE  AND  DEFEAT  THE  LOYSTER 

LAW 

FIRST  DEFENSE:  DOCTOR’S  CERTIFICATE  OF  DANGER  TO 

HEALTH  OR  LIFE 

Under  the  present  circumstances,  therefore,  the  best  advice  I can 
now  give  you  for  legally  defeating  or  evading  this  evil  law  and  getting 
your  child  admitted  to  school  without  the  serious  or  fatal  danger  of 

10 


vaccination  is  to  get  a doctor’s  certificate  that  vaccination  will  be  in- 
jurious to  your  child  in  his  present  state  of  health,  upon  which  cer- 
tificate he  can  be  admitted  to  any  public  school  under  existing  rules  of 
the  Department  of  Education.  You  will  find  that  there  are  several 
good  doctors  in  the  city  strongly  opposed  to  child  vaccination  who  are 
fully  aware  of  its  great  dangers  to  the  health  and  life  of  children  and 
who  know  that  there  are  many  children  so  susceptible  to  this  form  of 
blood  poisoning  as  to  make  it  highly  dangerous  or  possibly  fatal  to  them. 


DEATHS  OF  30  CHILDREN  FROM  VACCINATION  IN  1914 

We  have  now  on  hand  positive  and  circumstantial  evidence,  suffi- 
cient to  convince  any  ordinary  jury,  of  nearly  thirty  deaths  of  school 
children  from  vaccination,  by  lockjaw  and  other  blood  infections  in- 
troduced in  the  vaccination  wound,  all  in  1914  in  this  State  alone ! 
Three  or  more  of  these  deaths  occurred  in  Brooklyn  or  its  vicinity, 
whereas  there  were  only  three  deaths  from  smallpox  in  the  whole  State 
in  the  same  year!  As  supplemental  to  this  irrefragable  evidence  against 
vaccination,  the  yearly  reports  of  the  highest  statistical  authority  in  the 
world,  the  Registrar-General  of  England,  show  that  for  several  years 
past  the  deaths  of  children  from  vaccination  greatly  exceed  deaths  of 
children  from  smallpox,  and  yet  our  health  officials  and  vaccinating 
doctors  in  this  City  and  State  constantly  deceive  the  public  mind  with 
the  outrageous  medical  and  statistical  falsehood  that  vaccination  is  per- 
fectly safe  and  harmless  and  never  causes  any  serious  injury  except 
that  brought  about  by  the  fault  of  the  patient  himself. 


THE  GREATEST  SIN  IN  THE  MORAL  CODE  COMMITTED  BY 

VACCINATORS. 

This  awful  falsehood  of  our  vaccinators  constantly  uttered  that 
vaccination  is  perfectly  or  relatively  safe  and  harmless,  may  therefore 
be  said  to  come  under  the  classification  of  the  highest  sin  in  the  moral 
code  of  Christianity  known  as  “the  sin  against  the  Holy  Ghost” — the 
Spirit  of  Truth — which  consists  in  brazenly  “impugning  the  known 
truth”  for  the  motives  of  some  concealment  of  error,  pride  of  opinion 
or  professional  profit.  This  is  the  gravest  of  all  sins  which  The  Greatest 
Hebrew  Prophet  has  solemnly  told  us  will  not  be  forgiven  either  in  this 
world  or  the  world  to  come ! 


11 


SECOND  DEFENSE  (FOR  CITY  PARENTS) : CHANGE  RESI- 
DENCE TO  COUNTRY  DISTRICT 


Another  good  suggestion  I can  give  you  for  the  defense  of  your 
children  against  this  barbarous  law  which  makes  compulsory  disease  a 
pre-condition  for  education,  is  to  change  your  residence  to  one  of  the 
suburbs  on  the  outer  edge  or  beyond  the  limits  of  New  York  City, 
where  children  can  be  admitted  under  the  present  law  without  vaccina- 
tion. 

THE  THIRD  DEFENSE— PRIVATE  SCHOOLS  AND  CONSTI- 
TUTIONAL RIGHTS. 

A further  suggestion  is  to  send  your  child  to  any  of  the  big  private 
schools  in  the  City,  the  Friends  School  or  the  Berkeley  Institute  for 
instance,  which  are  opposed  to  compulsory  vaccination  and  in  which 
it  is  believed  that  the  Health  officials  or  medical  interests  back  of 
them  will  not  attempt  to  enforce  the  present  evil  and  illegal  law  and 
where  this  law  will  be  readily  broken  down  if  legally  tested  there.  My 
own  children  go  to  the  Friends  School  and  to  the  Packer  Institute,  and 
I am  prepared  to  legally  defend  them  from  this  almost  criminal  law 
and  defeat  it  legally  in  the  courts  if  any  attempt  is  made  to  deprive  the 
children  of  these  schools  or  their  parents  of  any  of  our  inalienable  and 
constitutional  rights — the  highest  and  most  indispensable  of  these  rights 
being  obviously  the  right  to  education — which  our  medical  despots  will 
find  cannot  be  taken  away  from  any  citizen  in  this  great  State  “unless 
by  the  law  of  the  land  or  the  judgment  of  his  peers”  (see  State  Con- 
stitution Article  1st). 

COMPULSORY  VACCINATION  LEGALLY  A CRIME 

The  present  law  is  not  a “law  of  the  land,”  as  already  shown,  but 
is  the  law  of  a political  and  medical  clique  which  controls  our  legislation 
applied  arbitrarily  to  one  section  of  the  people  only  and  passed  under 
conditions  which  I believe  will  not  stand  the  light  of  day  and  are  illegal, 
as  I showed  in  my  protest  at  the  hearing  before  the  Governor.  This 
law,  in  fact,  impresses  an  illegal  and  criminal  condition  on  the  citizen 
and  parent,  that  he  must  first  endanger  the  health  or  life  of  his  healthy 
child  as  a condition  for  education  by  deliberately  inflicting  upon  him 
a disease  of  blood  poisoning,  which  is  now  demonstrably  more  danger- 
ous to  public  health  and  human  life  than  smallpox  itself  and  actually 

12 


kills  more  children  every  year  than  smallpox  and  has  also  been  proved 
to  be  the  cause  of  our  great  epidemics  of  foot  and  mouth  disease  of 
cattle,  which  have  caused  the  slaughter  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
farm  animals  all  over  this  country  in  1902,  1908  and  1914,  and  have 
already  cost  the  State  and  National  governments  and  our  farmers, 
dairymen  and  stockmen  many  millions  of  dollars.  Of  course,  no  such 
evil  practice  capable  of  such  deadly  results  can  be  forced  legally  on 
any  person  in  this  State  under  our  fundamental  laws  and  charters. 

FOURTH  DEFENSE:  CRIMINAL  PROSECUTION  OF  VACCIN- 
ATORS UNDER  COMMON  LAW  AND  PENAL  CODE 

You  will  see  that  I have  described  forced  vaccination  under  the 
present  Loyster  Law  as  a crime  on  the  people,  which  I insist  upon 
with  all  legal  soberness  and  seriousness  because  it  is  actually  a crime 
under  common  and  statute  law  to  maim,  wound  or  assault  the  human 
body  or  to  inflict  upon  it  any  medical  malpractice  or  infectious  disease 
capable  of  causing  serious  injury  or  death,  and  particularly  is  it  a crime 
to  inflict  such  a malpractice  on  children  under  section  483  of  the  Penal 
Code,  which  prohibits  “Endangering  Life  or  Health  of  Child ” and  it 
is  therefore  high  time  that  all  persons  who  may  be  legally  or  morally 
responsible  for  the  killing  of  the  thirty  or  more  children  in  this  State 
by  forced  vaccination  in  the  last  year  were  tried  before  a Common 
Court  and  Jury  under  these  laws. 


13 


FIFTH  DEFENSE:  NO  LEGAL  POWER  EXISTS  TO  COMPEL 

VACCINATION 

VACCINATION  LAW  CONFLICTS  WITH  EDUCATION  LAW 
AND  DISTRICT  SCHOOL  OFFICERS  HAVE  POWER  TO 
SUSPEND  VACCINATION  LAW  AND  ADMIT  UNVACCIN- 
ATED CHILDREN,  ACCORDING  TO  DECISION  OF  DEPART- 
MENT OF  EDUCATION  BY  COMMISSIONER  DRAPER  IN 
1912. 


This  is  a very  important  point  of  legal  defense  against  the  vaccina- 
tion law  which  I wish  to  particularly  impress  upon  and  make  plain 
to  you  and  other  parents  and  especially  to  all  school  officers  in  public 
or  private  schools. 


NO  LAW  OR  LEGAL  POWER  IN  THE  STATE  TO  COMPEL 

VACCINATION 

Contrary  to  the  general  false  idea  there  is  absolutely  no  law  in  this 
State  now  and  never  was,  directing,  requiring  or  compelling  any  one  to 
be  vaccinated  or  directing  or  compelling  any  parent  to  have  his  child 
vaccinated  to  attend  school  or  otherwise.  In  fact,  some  of  our  higher 
courts  have  decided  that  there  is  no  power  in  the  Legislature  itself  to 
make  vaccination  compulsory  or  compel  any  one  to  be  vaccinated.  See 
decision  of  Judge  Gaynor  against  Health  Commissioner  Emery  of 
Brooklyn  in  1894,  and  the  decision  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  sustaining 
Judge  Gaynor.  See  also  decision  of  Judge  Woodward  of  the  Appellate 
Court  in  the  case  of  Viemeister  in  1903.  The  Supreme  Court  of  Massa- 
chusetts in  the  case  of  Jacobson  in  1903  decided  that  it  was  not  in  the 
power  of  the  law  to  compel  vaccination  of  any  one  who  objected  to  it, 
but  only  to  collect  the  fine  of  five  dollars.  The  Supreme  Court  of  the 
United  States,  in  this  same  case  of  Jacobson,  decided  in  1904  that 
the  fine  as  an  alternative  to  vaccination  was  constitutional,  but  Judges 
Brewer  and  Peckham  dissented,  evidently  holding  that  not  even  this 
fine  of  $5  was  constitutional  as  an  effort  to  compel  vaccination. 
This  great  court,  however,  agreed  unanimously  that  vaccination  could 
not  be  forced  on  any  one  who  could  show  that  it  was  dangerous  to  their 
health  or  life.  Judge  Bartlett  of  the  New  York  Supreme  Court  in  the 
case  of  Walters  in  1894  decided  that  to  compel  vaccination  by  intimida- 
tion or  force  was  criminal  assault. 


14 


The  only  school  vaccination  law  we  now  have  or  ever  did  have 
in  this  State  does  not  compel  any  one  to  be  vaccinated  but  merely 
authorizes  the  school  officers  to  exclude  or  refuse  admission  to  any 
child  or  other  person  who  does  not  wish  to  adopt  vaccination,  but  there 
is  no  power  in  the  school  officers  or  even  in  the  law  or  legislature  itself 
to  compel  any  one  to  be  vaccinated  against  will  and  consent.  Now, 
therefore,  while  we  have  no  vaccination  law  compelling  or  directing  any 
one  to  be  vaccinated,  we  have  an  Education  Law  which  very  clearly 
and  positively  compels  all  children  between  six  and  fourteen  years  of 
age  in  proper  physical  and  mental  health  to  " attend  upon  instruction ” 
at  a school  of  some  kind,  public  or  private.  There  is  also  a distinct 
law  applying  to  all  parents,  or  others  in  parental  relation  to  children, 
compelling  them  to  cause  all  healthy  children  of  school  age  to  “attend 
upon  instruction’’  under  positive  penalties  for  neglect  to  do  so.  Now 
please  note  this  important  point,  viz. : There  is  a distinct  penal  law 
compelling  parents  to  send  their  children  to  school  and  also  a law 
binding  on  the  school  officers  compelling  education  for  every  healthy 
child,  but  there  is  no  law  whatever  compelling  any  parent  to  have  any 
child  vaccinated  to  attend  school  or  otherwise.  Consequently  every 
parent  who  sends  his  healthy  child  to  school,  whether  vaccinated  or 
not,  obeys  this  law,  and  the  school  officers  who  refuse  to  admit  such 
healthy  child  and  give  him  education — his  most  indispensable  and  in- 
alienable right  which  no  one  can  take  away  from  him — break  this  law. 
Therefore,  the  parent  who  will  persist  in  sending  his  child  to  school  and 
persist  in  refusing  to  have  his  health  or  life  endangered  by  vaccination 
breaks  no  law  whatever  but  faithfully  performs  his  parental  duties  and 
fully  obeys  the  laws  as  they  are  and  cannot  be  prosecuted  for  fading  to 
have  his  child  vaccinated,  as  there  is  no  such  offense  under  any  of  our 
existing  laws.  On  the  contrary,  the  parent  can  properly  plead  that 
there  is  one  penal  law  that  he  would  violate  if  he  had  his  child  vaccin- 
ated, to  the  endangering  of  his  health  and  life,  viz.,  Section  483  of  the 
Penal  Code,  on  this  very  point  already  referred  to. 

DECISION  OF  COURT  OF  APPEALS  IN  EKEROLD  CASE 

EXPLAINED 

There  is  one  recent  decision  of  the  Court  of  Appeals  in  the  case  of 
the  parent  Ekerold  which  has  been  grossly  misrepresented  by  the  vac- 
cinators who  try  to  make  it  appear  that  Ekerold  was  fined  for  not  hav- 
ing his  child  vaccinated.  He,  of  course,  could  not  be  legally  prose- 
cuted or  fined  for  this  act  or  omission  because  there  is  no  law  whatever 
compelling  any  parent  to  vaccinate  his  child  under  penalty  of  fine  or 

15 


otherwise,  and  it  is,  of  course,  as  true  in  the  laws  of  the  State  of  New 
York  as  in  the  Epistle  of  St.  Paul  to  the  Romans  that  “ where  no  law 
is  there  is  no  transgression.”  Ekerold  was  fined  simply  for  not  sending 
his  child  to  school  and  not  for  failing  to  vaccinate  him,  and  the  whole 
decision  turns  on  that  point  and  the  Court  clearly  pointed  out  that  if 
Ekerold  objected  to  vaccination  he  could  easily  have  sent  his  child  to 
private  school,  where  vaccination  was  not  required  under  the  old  law 
under  which  this  decision  was  rendered.  If,  therefore,  Ekerold  had  been 
properly  advised  in  the  first  place  he  would  have  persisted  in  sending 
his  child  to  the  public  school  and  demanded  education  for  him  there 
under  the  compulsory  education  law,  and  also  would  have  persisted 
in  his  legal  right  to  refuse  to  have  the  health  or  life  of  his  child  en- 
dangered by  vaccination,  and  if  the  school  officers  then  refused  to 
give  him  education  they  would  thereby  be  the  breakers  of  the  education 
law  and  not  Ekerold,  who  could  not,  of  course,  be  prosecuted  under 
this  law,  which  simply  requires  that  parents  cause  their  children  to 
“attend  upon  instruction.” 

Now  to  show  how  sound  and  safe  this  point  of  law  is  I will  simply 
state  that  there  have  been  about  half  a dozen  cases  already  tried  before 
courts  and  juries  in  different  parts  of  the  State  where  it  was  attempted 
to  convict  and  fine  parents  for  violation  of  the  education  law  under 
these  very  circumstances  where  parents  persisted  in  sending  their 
children  to  public  school,  but  refused  to  have  them  vaccinated,  and 
the  jury  failed  to  convict  in  every  case  and  freed  the  parent. 

DECISION  OF  COMMISSIONER  DRAPER  OF  DEPARTMENT 
OF  EDUCATION  IN  THE  CASE  OF  THE  TOWN  OF  OLEAN 

If,  therefore,  you  and  other  parents  will  combine  and  adopt  this 
legal  course  and  refuse  to  have  your  children  vaccinated  but  persist 
in  sending  them  every  day  to  your  local  public  school  and  demand  in- 
struction for  them  under  the  compulsory  Education  Law  you  will  see 
that  the  school  officers  will  soon  find  a good  legal  reason  to  admit 
them.  This  reason  is  in  the  law  itself,  as  just  explained,  and  in  the 
decision  rendered  in  the  Department  of  Education  at  Albany  by  Com- 
missioner Draper  in  1912  in  the  case  of  the  town  of  Olean,  where 
hundreds  of  parents  refused  to  have  their  children  vaccinated  on 
account  of  danger  to  health  and  life  but  insisted  on  their  right  to 
public  education  under  the  education  law  and  where  two  thousand 
children  have  ever  since  attended  school  unvaccinated.  The  schools 
in  Newburgh,  Niagara  Falls,  and  several  other  towns  in  the  State 

16 


have  also  admitted  unvaccinated  children  freely  on  this  decision.  In 
this  case  Commissioner  Draper  decided  that  the  vaccination  law  con- 
flicted with  the  education  law  and  that,  as  both  laws  could  not  be  en- 
forced, the  school  officers  should  suspend  the  vaccination  law  and  en- 
force the  education  law  until  the  Legislature  should  remove  the  conflict 
in  the  two  laws.  The  Legislature  has  not  yet,  however,  removed  the 
conflict,  as  the  new  law  is  just  as  stupid  and  conflicting  in  this  respect 
as  the  old  law  and  therefore  the  decision  of  Commissioner  Draper  still 
holds  as  a binding  authority  on  the  Department  of  Education  and  on  all 
public  schools  under  it  and  it  should  here  be  fully  understood  that  a 
decision  of  the  Commissioner  of  Education  is  final  and  unappealable 
and  binding  on  every  public  school  officer  in  the  State. 

Under  these  legal  principles,  therefore,  the  officers  of  every  public 
or  private  school  in  the  State  have  power  at  their  discretion  to  admit 
any  child  unvaccinated  with  or  without  a doctor’s  certificate,  as  men- 
tioned in  the  First  Defense. 

RE-VACCINATION  ILLEGAL— ONE  VACCINATION 
SUFFICIENT 

Another  point  that  I wish  to  particularly  impress  upon  you  is  that 
if  your  child  has  been  once  vaccinated,  whether  “successfully”  or  not, 
and  no  matter  how  many  years  ago,  he  cannot  be  legally  required  to  be 
re-vaccinated  under  section  310,  paragraph  1 of  the  present  law  apply- 
ing to  cities  but  must  be  admitted  to  school  without  re-vaccination.  It 
may  be  that  your  child  has  been  already  vaccinated,  although  a long 
time  since,  and,  if  so,  you  can  get  him  admitted  to  any  public  school  in 
the  cities  under  the  present  law  without  further  vaccination. 

ANOTHER  VITAL  LEGAL  POINT 
EDUCATION  WHEN  PAID  FOR  IS  A RIGHT  AND  NOT  A 

“PRIVILEGE” 

The  cases  of  Walters  in  1894  and  of  Viemeister  in  1903  were  in- 
stances where  parents  attempted  to  force  the  admission  of  their  children 
into  the  public  schools  without  vaccination  under  the  old  law  of  1893. 
In  both  these  cases  our  courts  decided  that  public  education  “at  the  ex- 
pense of  the  State” — which  means  to  a person  who  pays  no  school  taxes 
or  costs  of  education — is  a “privilege”  and  not  a “right.”  Walters 
and  Viemeister  it  appears  were  not  taxpayers  and  this  point  was  actu- 
ally raised  against  them  in  court.  To  a parent,  however,  who  is  a tax- 
payer and  pays  his  school  taxes  or  other  costs  of  the  education  of  his 


17 


children,  it  is  obvious  that  the  case  is  quite  different  and  that  this  legal 
point  made  in  these  court  decisions  does  not  apply  to  him  and  that  paid- 
for  education,  public  or  private,  is  not  a mere  “privilege,”  like  free  board 
for  a pauper,  but  is  clearly  a citizen’s  “rightf’  and  cannot,  we  believe, 
be  legally  refused  under  the  Compulsory  Education  Law  to  any  tax- 
paying  citizen  or  healthy  child  merely  because  the  parent  will  not 
expose  his  healthy  child  to  the  serious  or  fatal  danger  of  disease  inocu- 
lation, which  is  in  itself  an  illegal  requirement,  as  before  shown.  We 
have  already  shown  that  the  court  in  both  of  these  cases  admitted  that 
there  was  no  power  in  the  law  to  compel  any  one  to  be  vaccinated  and 
that  to  force  vaccination  on  any  one  was  criminal  assault. 

These  decisions,  therefore,  in  no  way  refute  the  right  of  a tax- 
paying  citizen  to  get  his  healthy  child  admitted  to  school  without  vac- 
cination and  particularly  not  where  the  school  officer  elects  at  his  dis- 
cretion to  so  admit  him  under  the  decision  of  the  Commissioner  of 
Education  in  the  case  of  the  town  of  Clean  in  1912,  as  before  cited, 
which  is  final  and  binding  in  the  schools  of  the  State,  as  has  been  shown. 

Under  these  several  decisions,  therefore,  there  is  everything  to 
authorize  and  nothing  to  prevent  any  school  officer,  in  public  or  private 
school,  from  exercising  his  discretion  and  admitting  any  healthy  un- 
vaccinated child,  notwithstanding  the  present  Loyster  LawT,  which  is 
actually  legally  non-enforceable  in  the  case  of  every  school  officer  who 
thus  acts  within  his  legal  rights,  as  already  indicated. 

I will  finally  here  point  out  a fundamental,  vital  and  legal  reason 
to  justify  any  school  officer  in  suspending  the  vaccination  law  in  any 
school  at  any  time,  which  is  this : — The  school  vaccination  law  was 
passed  by  the  Legislature  under  a medical  deception  and  is  now  main- 
tained on  the  people  by  a gross  medical  deception  that  this  operation 
is  entirely  beneficial,  necessary  for  the  prevention  of  smallpox  epidemics 
and  perfectly  safe  and  harmless,  and  never  causes  any  injury  or  death, 
whereas,  in  fact,  by  government  record,  it  now  kills  more  children  than 
smallpox,  as  shown  by  the  reports  of  the  highest  statistical  authority 
in  the  world,  the  Registrar-General  of  England.  This  positive  fact, 
therefore,  entirely  alters  the  aspect  of  this  medical  operation  before  the 
Public,  the  Courts  and  the  Law,  so  that  there  is  sufficient  solid  ground 
in  this  legal,  hygienic  and  statistical  fact  alone  to  justify  any  local 
school  board  in  at  once  suspending  vaccination  in  any  school  or  district 
where  this  fact  becomes  apparent  to  their  official  minds.  Our  highest 
court  in  this  country,  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  in  the  case  of  Jacob- 
son, appealed  from  Massachusetts,  decided  positively  on  this  very 
point  that  vaccination  could  not  be  legally  forced  on  any  one  who  can 

18 


show  that  it  is  dangerous  to  health  and  life,  and  two  judges  of  this 
court  by  dissent  held  that  this  Massachusetts  law  to  enforce  vaccination 
by  a fine  was  not  constitutional. 

DEATHS  FROM  VACCINATION  GREATER  THAN  DEATHS 

FROM  SMALLPOX 

A PUBLIC  CHALLENGE  RENEWED 

To  prove  the  positive  statement  made  in  the  previous  paragraph  as 
to  the  demonstrated  fatality  of  vaccination  and  therefore  the  conse- 
quent illegality  of  its  enforcement,  I will  now  refer  to  the  report  of  the 
Registrar-General  of  England  and  Wales  for  the  recent  year  of  1911 
where  this  most  significant  comparative  data  is  given  as  to  deaths  from 
smallpox  and  vaccination  for  that  year : 


Total  deaths  from  smallpox  for  all  ages 23 

Deaths  from  smallpox  under  5 years 6 

Total  deaths  from  vaccination,  all  ages 14 

Deaths  from  vaccination  under  5 years 14 

Specific  Diseases  or  Causes  of  Death  in  Said  14  Fatal 
Vaccinations — 

From  “Vaccinia”  or  “Cowpox”  directly... 6 

From  Vaccination  resulting  in  Fatal  Septicemia 5 

From  Vaccination  resulting  in  Fatal  Erysipelas 3 

Total 14 


Here  we  will  see  from  one  of  the  latest  published  annual  records  of 
the  highest  statistical  authority  in  the  world  that  for  the  year  1911  in 
England  and  Wales,  in  a population  of  about  36,000,000  the  total  deaths 
from  vaccination  were  14,  or  more  than  half  the  total  deaths  from  small- 
pox, which  were  23 ! On  the  other  hand,  the  deaths  from  smallpox  in 
little  children  were  only  six,  and  exactly  equal  to  the  deaths  caused 
directly  by  “vaccinia”  or  cowpox,  pure  and  simple,  in  children  of  the 
same  age,  whereas  the  additional  deaths  from  wound  infections  in  the 
vaccination  sores,  viz. : from  Septicemia  and  Erysipelas,  added  eight 
more  fatalities,  thus  making  the  deaths  from  vaccination  in  little 
children  over  twice  as  many  as  the  deaths  from  smallpox! 

To  show  that  deaths  from  vaccination  in  this  year  of  1911  in  Eng- 
land, as  compared  to  deaths  from  smallpox,  are  nothing  unusual  and 
that  such  deaths  occur  more  or  less  constantly  every  year,  and  that  the 
total  yearly  deaths  from  vaccination  exceed  total  yearly  deaths  from 
smallpox,  particularly  in  children,  I can  give  this  further  impressive 

19 


data  from  the  reports  of  the  Registrar-General  for  several  years  previ- 
ous to  1911,  as  follows: 


Year.  Total  Deaths  from  Total  Deaths  from 

Smallpox.  Vaccination. 

1906  21  29 

1907  10  12 

1908  12  13 


Total  Deaths  from  Smallpox  for  six  years  1905  to  1910..  199 
Total  Deaths  from  Vaccination  for  six  years  1905  to  1910  99 
Deaths  from  Smallpox  in  said  period  under  5 years  old..  26 
Deaths  from  Vaccination  in  said  period  under  5 years  old  98 

This  awful  record  of  fatal  vaccinations  thus  speaks  very  clearly  for 
itself  and  forms  an  absolute  indictment  of  the  whole  barbarous  and 
murderous  system  of  compulsory  vaccination,  particularly  for  little 
children,  as  being  both  illegal  and  criminal  in  its  very  nature,  and  needs 
no  further  comment  here.  It  can  be  further  proved  that  an  equal  or 
greater  fatality  from  vaccination,  as  compared  to  the  English  records, 
occurs  in  our  own  State  of  New  York,  but  these  fatalities  are  denied 
and  concealed  in  our  death  certificates  and  yearly  reports  by  our  vac- 
cinating doctors  and  health  officials  of  city  and  state,  as  I have  re- 
peatedly and  publicly  charged  and  have  challenged  these  doctors  and 
officials  to  deny  or  disprove  this  charge  if  they  can  or  dare,  and  I now 
hereby  renew  this  public  challenge  on  this  most  serious  point. 

COMPULSORY  VACCINATION  NOT  NECESSARY  TO  PRE- 
VENT SMALLPOX 

In  England,  the  home  of  vaccination,  no  compulsion  is  placed  on 
the  school  age  but  only  on  the  infant  class,  under  five  years,  this  age 
being  the  most  susceptible  to  smallpox,  the  adult  age  (over  20)  being 
the  next  most  susceptible,  whereas  the  school  age  (from  6 to  19)  is  the 
least  susceptible  to  smallpox  of  any  part  of  the  population.  Even  in 
this  infant  age  any  child  can  be  exempted  from  vaccination  by  a special 
law  known  as  the  “conscientious  clause,”  which  allows  their  parents  to 
file  a declaration  of  conscientious  objection  within  the  first  year  of  life, 
under  which  law  nearly  half  of  the  children  born  in  England  are  now 
exempted  from  vaccination  as  a recognition  by  parents  of  its  great 
danger  to  health  and  fife.  Notwithstanding  this  great  decline  in  English 
vaccination  and  its  almost  entire  absence  on  school  children,  smallpox 
has  steadily  declined  in  England  with  the  corresponding  increase  of 
sanitation  and  hygiene,  so  that  the  English  Minister  of  Health,  Hon. 
John  Burns,  made  this  public  declaration  in  the  House  of  Commons  on 

20 


April  12,  1911,  that:  “Just  in  proportion  as  in  recent  years  exemptions 
(from  vaccination)  have  gone  up  from  4 per  cent,  to  30  per  cent.,  so 
deaths  from  smallpox  have  declined/' 

In  the  third  greatest  state  in  our  country,  Illinois,  with  the  second 
largest  city,  there  is  no  compulsory  vaccination  on  school  children  and 
yet  no  increase  of  smallpox  has  been  shown  after  many  years  of  trial. 
In  the  large  state  of  Minnesota  there  is  also  no  compulsion  on  school 
children,  and  in  the  small  state  of  Utah  compulsion  is  absolutely  pro- 
hibited; yet  in  all  of  these  instances  of  small  and  large  states  it  has  not 
been  found  that  any  increase  of  smallpox  has  resulted  from  the  decline 
of  vaccination.  In  fact,  the  English  city  of  Leicester,  of  about  300,000 
population,  is  a brilliant  example  of  the  needlessness  of  vaccination  to 
prevent  smallpox  and  the  value  of  its  abolition  to  health  and  life.  This 
city  has  practically  abandoned  the  use  of  vaccination  for  the  last  35 
years  and  has  relied  almost  entirely  on  sanitation  and  isolation  and  yet 
has  had  no  trouble  in  controlling  smallpox,  but  has  had  one  of  the  lowest 
figures  for  smallpox  mortality,  general  death-rate  and  infant  mortality 
in  the  world.  See  the  remarkable  acknowledgment  of  these  facts 
from  opposite  sides,  viz.,  from  the  anti-vaccination  side  in  the  book  by 
Mr.  J.  T.  Biggs,  former  town  official  of  Leicester,  entitled  “Leicester — • 
Sanitation  vs.  Vaccination,"  London,  1912,  and  from  the  pro  side  in  the 
recent  convincing  work  of  Dr.  Killick  Millard,  present  health  officer  of 
Leicester,  in  his  book,  “The  Vaccination  Question,"  London,  1914. 

THE  LEICESTER  METHOD 
PREVENTING  SMALLPOX  WITHOUT  VACCINATION 

This  is  the  gist  of  what  Health  Officer  Millard — a pro-vaccinist — 
says  of  the  success  of  the  Leicester  method  of  preventing  smallpox 
without  vaccination: 

“The  two  crucial  and  outstanding  facts  which  I wish  to  lay 
stress  upon,  are: 

“(a)  The  unexpected  and  remarkable  experience  of  the  town  of 
Leicester,  which  for  thirty  years  has  abandoned  infantile  vaccination, 
yet  has  shown  an  enormous  decline  in  smallpox  mortality. 

“(b)  The  fact  that  although  infantile  vaccination  is  falling  more 
and  more  into  disuse  throughout  the  whole  country,  yet  smallpox,  con- 
trary to  all  pro-vaccinist  expectation  and  prophecy,  continues  to  de- 
cline and  has  almost  disappeared." 

* * * “The  striking  facts  that  in  Leicester,  without  infantile 

vaccination  the  decline  has  been  greater  than  in  most  places,  and 

21 


that  throughout  the  country  smallpox  has  continued  to  decrease  in  spite 
of  the  falling  off  in  vaccination,  should  surely  be  sufficient  grounds 
for  legitimate  doubt. 

* * * “If  it  can  be  shown  that  “sanitation”  thoroughly  carried 
out,  is  alone  sufficient  for  the  effective  control  of  smallpox  in  this 
country  fas  in  Leicester]  why  inflict  upon  the  community  universal 
vaccination  with  all  its  inseparable  drawbacks?  Moreover,  what  justi- 
fication can  there  be  any  longer  for  compulsion? 

“It  cannot  be  denied  that  vaccination  causes,  in  the  aggregate, 
very  considerable  injury  to  health,  most  of  it  only  temporary,  but 
some  permanent.  * * * we  must  never  forget  that  vaccination  is 

an  evil.  Vaccinia  is  just  as  much  a disease  as  smallpox,  though  a 
less  serious  one,  and  all  diseases  must  be  regarded  as  evil  and  to  be 
avoided  if  possible.  There  is  not  the  slightest  evidence  that  vaccination 
apart  from  its  effect  in  preventing  smallpox  is  of  the  least  value  or 
anything  but  detrimental  to  the  human  race.  * * * “During  the 

last  decade  the  deaths  from  vaccinia  have  several  times  outnumbered 
those  from  smallpox,  whilst  if  we  have  regard  to  the  amount  of  ill 
health  caused  by  the  two  diseases  (and  putting  aside  for  the  moment 
the  question  of  the  alleged  effect  of  vaccination  in  lessening  smallpox) 
it  looks  as  if  vaccinia  were  becoming,  so  far  as  the  community  is  con- 
cerned, the  more  serious  disease  of  the  two.  * * * “Infantile  vac- 

cination has  one  serious  drawback;  whilst  mitigating  smallpox  it  also 
disguises  it,  and  in  this  way  tends  to  spread  the  disease. 

“I  regard  this  proposition  of  so  much  importance,  and  it  has  re- 
ceived so  little  attention,  that  I propose  to  devote  a separate  chapter 
to  its  consideration.” 

A MOST  IMPORTANT  POINT 
VACCINATION  ADMITTEDLY  SPREADS  SMALLPOX 

Dr.  Millard  in  this  last  paragraph  makes  a point  which  seems  to 
be  novel  to  pro-vaccinists  but  has  been  well  known  to  anti-vaccinists 
for  a long  time,  and  it  is  very  important  that  this  should  be  clearly  un- 
derstood. This  point  really  is  that  the  majority  of  cases  of  smallpox 
always  occur  among  the  vaccinated  and  the  majority  of  cases  are 
usually  very  mild,  whether  among  the  vaccinated  or  unvaccinated. 

It  is  in  fact  just  because  smallpox  is  usually  such  a mild  disease, 
instead  of  the  very  severe  disease  popularly  supposed,  that  most  epi- 
demics are  allowed  to  spread.  Ordinary  smallpox  may  simply  and 

22 


briefly  be  described  as  like  an  ordinary  or  severe  cold,  with  pimples 
breaking  out  on  the  face  and  hands,  and  the  average  person  and  even 
the  average  doctor  being  unacquainted  with  the  disease  does  not  recog- 
nize it  until  some  time  after  the  infected  person  has  exposed  many  others 
to  the  disease.  Smallpox  is  often  confounded  with  measles,  scarlet 
fever,  chicken  pox,  scurvy  and  some  other  diseases,  and  this  con- 
fusion by  non-expert  doctors  is  one  of  the  chief  causes  for  the  spread 
of  the  infection  in  most  outbreaks  of  the  disease. 

Now  on  account  of  the  ignorance  and  incompetence  of  the  aver- 
age doctor  in  recognizing  smallpox  and  by  his  false  faith  in  vaccina- 
tion as  a sure  preventative  a false  rule  of  diagnosis  has  been  generally 
adopted  by  the  profession  which  is  actually  this:  If  the  patient  has 
been  vaccinated,  recently  or  otherwise,  the  disease  is  diagnosed  as  not 
smallpox,  but  if  not  vaccinated,  it  is  declared  to  be  smallpox!  The 
result  is  that  the  vaccinated  person  with  actual  but  “disguised”  small- 
pox is  not  isolated  but  is  allowed  free  range  until  he  has  infected 
several  others  and  spread  an  epidemic  in  his  own  vicinity.  On  the 
other  hand  if  this  infecting  person  had  not  been  vaccinated  at  all  his 
disease  would  promptly  be  declared  to  be  actual  smallpox  and  he 
would  be  at  once  isolated  and  further  spread  of  the  disease  prevented. 
It  is  for  this  reason  therefore  that  Dr.  Millard  so  wisely  and  truly 
says  that  vaccination  actually  serves  to  spread  smallpox,  a fact  long 
well  known  to  our  anti-vaccination  leagues  but  now  clearly  admitted 
by  a pro-vaccinist. 


OUR  TEN  CITIES  OF  FIRST  AND  SECOND  CLASSES 
COMPARED  TO  LEICESTER. 

Before  leaving  this  subject  of  the  Leicester  method  of  preventing 
smallpox  without  vaccination,  it  may  be  proper  to  call  attention  to  the 
fact  that  of  the  five  big  and  five  small  cities  in  this  State  on  which  com- 
pulsory vaccination  is  now  placed  by  the  Loyster  law,  eight  of  these 
cities,  viz. : Albany,  Syracuse,  Rochester,  Yonkers,  Schenectady,  Utica, 
Troy  and  Binghampton,  are  all  much  smaller  in  population  than  Leices- 
ter, and  only  New  York  and  Buffalo  are  larger,  and  yet  this  large  city 
of  Leicester,  larger  than  eight  of  our  ten  largest  cities,  has  proved  how 
practical  it  is  to  prevent  smallpox  by  sanitation  and  hygiene,  without 
vaccination,  which  result  can,  of  course,  be  equally  effected  in  our 
cities,  large  or  small,  without  any  of  the  coercive  vaccination  which  is 
now  forced  on  these  cities  by  this  evil  and  illegal  Loyster  Law. 

23 


VOLUNTARY  VACCINATION  NOT  OPPOSED  BY  OUR 

LEAGUE 


HIGHEST  MEDICAL  AUTHORITY  TO-DAY  OPPOSED  TO 

COMPULSION 

At  this  point  we  might  emphasize  the  fact  that  while  our  League 
is  absolutely  opposed  to  all  compulsion,  we  do  not  oppose  voluntary 
vaccination,  although  we  believe  that  in  most  cases  the  operation  is 
needless  and  dangerous  and  will  yet  be  prohibited  by  penal  law,  just 
as  its  dangerous  predecessor  smallpox  inoculation  was  so  prohibited, 
although  approved  for  over  a century  by  the  highest  medical  authori- 
ties of  the  time. 

It  will  therefore  be  seen  that  we  agree  with  the  most  advanced 
and  intelligent  pro-vaccinists  of  to-day,  as  represented  by  Dr.  Millard 
in  simply  opposing  all  compulsion  and  leaving  voluntary  vaccination 
free  for  every  one  who  desires  it. 

This  fundamental  attitude  which  Dr.  Millard  and  our  leagues  take 
on  freedom  from  all  compulsion,  is  that  also  taken  in  the  latest  and 
highest  work  of  medical  authority  to-day,  viz. : the  latest  edition  of 
‘‘Modern  Medicine”  by  Doctors  Osier  and  McCrae  published  in  four 
volumes  and  dated  1913.  In  Vol.  1,  P.  848,  this  latest  and  highest 
medical  authority  states  as  follows  as  regards  vaccination:  “With  the 
greatest  care,  however,  certain  risks  are  present  and  so  it  is  unwise 
for  the  physician  to  force  the  operation  upon  those  who  are  unwilling, 
or  to  give  assurances  of  absolute  harmlessness.” 

Now  this  is  substantially  the  attitude  which  our  Leagues  take  in 
this  controversy  and  if  it  is  good  enough  for  the  highest  and  latest 
written  authority  on  medicine  to-day  it  is  good  enough  for  our  medical 
societies,  our  health  departments,  our  school  officers  and  our  legislators 
in  this  state  to  take,  and  therefore  all  compulsory  or  coercive  vaccina- 
tion should  be  at  once  abandoned,  repealed  and  prohibited  as  being 
absolutely  a gross  medical  barbarism  and  danger,  particularly  on 
school  children,  and  a violation  of  fundamental  personal  rights  of  parent 
and  child  as  already  demonstrated. 


24 


RECAPITULATION 


COMPELLING  VACCINATION  BY  FORCE  OR  INTIMIDATION 
A CRIME  UNDER  PENAL  CODE  AND  DECISIONS  OF  OUR 
COURTS. 

CAUTION  TO  PARENTS  AND  SCHOOL  OFFICERS  AND 
WARNING  TO  VACCINATORS,  DOCTORS  AND  HEALTH 
OFFICERS. 

As  a condensation  or  recapitulation  of  the  advices  already  given,  I 
will  now  say  that  parents  and  school  officers  must  not  for  one  minute 
lose  sight  of  these  four  most  important  legal  points: 

(1)  There  is  no  law  in  this  state  to  actually  compel  or  require  any 
one  to  be  vaccinated. 

(2)  Parents  have  an  absolute  right  to  refuse  to  have  their  children 
vaccinated,  or  deliberately  diseased,  as  endangering  their  health  and  life. 

(3)  Parents  have  an  absolute  right  to  have  their  healthy  children 
educated  when  they  pay  for  the  education. 

(4)  Every  school  officer  in  public  or  private  school  has  the  full 
right  to  admit,  at  his  discretion,  any  child  or  person  unvaccinated,  where 
he  believes  vaccination  will  be  dangerous  to  health  or  life,  with  or  with- 
out a doctor’s  certificate. 

With  a clear  recognition,  therefore,  of  these  four  impregnable  legal 
points,  parents  and  school  officers  have  the  matter  of  school  vaccina- 
tion securely  in  their  own  hands  and  can  suspend  vaccination  in  any 
given  case  or  in  any  particular  school  at  their  own  discretion  as  they 
shall  best  determine,  and  no  power  in  this  State  can  compel  any  child 
or  other  person  to  be  vaccinated  against  will  and  consent  or  force  any 
school  officer  to  exclude  from  school  or  deny  education  to  any  healthy 
child  against  the  will  and  discretion  of  such  school  officer. 

Any  person  in  this  State  has  the  right  to  be  vaccinated  or  to  re- 
frain from  vaccination,  as  he  may  see  fit,  and  any  person  attempting 
to  compel  the  vaccination  of  any  other  person  by  any  form  of  force, 
coercion  or  intimidation,  no  matter  how  high  he  may  think  himself  in 
either  of  our  two  Departments  of  Health  and  Education,  will  simply 
be  committing  a crime  against  the  people  under  Section  530  of  the 
Penal  Code  on  “Coercion,”  which  is  in  these  words : 

“A  person  who,  with  a view  to  compel  another  person  to  do  or  to 
abstain  from  doing  an  act  which  such  other  person  has  a legal  right  to 

25 


do  or  to  abstain  from  doing,  wrongfully  and  unlawfully  uses  or  at- 
tempts the  intimidation  of  such  person  by  threats  or  force,  is  guilty  of 
a misdemeanor.” 

In  case,  therefore,  any  child,  parent,  teacher  or  school  officer  is  thus 
coerced  or  intimidated  by  any  doctor  or  health  officer  or  by  any 
misinformed  school  commissioner  in  thus  forcing  vaccination  illegally 
upon  any  such  person  against  free  will  and  consent  or  with  a view  to 
deny  to  any  healthy  child  his  inalienable  right  to  education  under  the 
laws  of  this  State,  I would  advise  that  a complaint  be  at  once  entered 
before  the  nearest  Magistrate  for  the  arrest  and  prosecution  of  such  in- 
timidator  under  this  Section  of  the  Penal  Code. 

CIVIL  DAMAGE  SUITS 

I might  here  cite  two  civil  damage  suits  that  were  tried  in  Brook- 
lyn against  doctors  and  health  officers  for  illegal  vaccination  by  in- 
timidation or  force,  as  a civil  warning  to  our  present  vaccinators  in 
addition  to  the  criminal  warning  already  given. 

One  of  these  suits  was  the  case  of  Smith  vs.  Health  Commissioner 
Emery,  tried  before  Judge  Brown  and  a jury  in  1896,  where  a verdict 
of  $489.00  was  given  in  favor  of  the  expressman  Smith  for  false  im- 
prisonment and  illegal  quarantine  while  Dr.  Emery  was  trying  to  force 
him  to  be  vaccinated  against  his  will  and  consent.  The  other  instance 
was  the  case  of  Schaeffer  vs.  Schelling,  in  which  a judgment  for  $1,500 
was  entered  Nov.  19,  1895,  in  the  Supreme  Court  in  Brooklyn  against 
Dr.  Schelling,  Commissioner  Emery’s  Assistant,  in  favor  of  Mr. 
Schaeffer  for  forcible  vaccination  of  himself  and  his  family,  and  the 
record  in  the  County  Clerk’s  Office  shows  this  judgment  was  duly  paid 
to  the  injured  Schaeffer. 

These  instances  of  the  illegality  of  all  actual  compulsory  vaccina- 
tion given  by  our  own  Brooklyn  courts  and  juries  should  be  sufficient 
warning  to  any  of  our  would-be  medical  despots  who  may  now  attempt 
any  illegal  intimidation  under  the  false  cover  of  the  new  Loyster  Law. 

CONCLUSION 

From  what  has  been  already  shown  it  now  rests  entirely  with 
parents,  teachers  and  school  officers  themselves  to  simply  assert  their 
legal  rights  most  firmly  and  positively  along  the  lines  fully  stated  herein 
to  make  this  present  Loyster  Law  a non-enforceable  absurdity  in  Law 
and  Equity,  as  it  really  is,  and  thus  lead  to  its  early  repeal  in  the  next 
Legislature  or  its  invalidation  in  our  courts  if  any  confident  vaccinator 

26 


desires  to  test  it  there.  In  this  case,  therefore,  the  old  motto  of  Civic 
Liberty  applies  here  most  emphatically,  “He  who  zuould  he  free , himself 
must  strike  the  blow” 

Strike  boldly,  therefore,  all  ye  parents,  teachers  and  school  officers, 
against  this  evil  law  forced  on  the  people  by  the  medical  interests,  and 
thus  secure  your  freedom  from  the  greatest  barbarism  ever  inflicted 
upon  a free  people  by  the  most  dangerous  form  of  coercive  dogmatism 
now  existing  in  our  body  politic,  viz.,  compulsory  medicine,  which  is 
far  more  dangerous  to  human  liberty,  health  and  life  than  compulsory 
religion  ever  was  but  which  must  now  be  explicitly  prohibited  by  law 
as  fully  and  completely  as  all  compulsory  religion  is  now  prohibited. 

Hoping,  therefore,  that  these  facts,  suggestions  and  advices  will  be 
of  some  help  to  you  and  other  parents  in  securing  your  constitutional 
and  inalienable  right  to  the  education  of  your  children  without  having 
to  surely  poison  them,  or  possibly  kill  them  in  advance,  as  a pre-con- 
dition for  such  education,  I remain, 

Yours  very  truly, 

CHAS.  M.  HIGGINS, 

Treasurer  Anti-Vaccination  League  of  America. 

271  Ninth  St.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y., 

August  27,  1915. 

Main  Office  of  League 
1420  Chestnut  St.,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

John  Pitcairn,  President 

Porter  F.  Cope,  Secretary 

Other  Officers  in  New  York  State 

Dr.  J.  W.  Hodge,  Niagara  Falls,  Vice-President 
Hugh  A.  Daniel,  Newburgh,  Director 

Officers  in  Other  States 

Vice-Presidents — C.  Oscar  Beasly,  Philadelphia;  J.  D.  Nasmith, 
Toronto,  Canada;  John  W.  Griggs,  St.  Paul,  Minn.;  Dr.  J.  H.  Greer, 
Chicago,  111.;  Mrs.  J.  L.  C.  Henderson,  Wayland,  Mass.;  Dr.  W.  B. 
Clarke,  Indianapolis,  Ind. ; Dr.  Zachary  T.  Miller,  Pittsburgh,  Pa. ; 
Dr.  Walter  M.  James,  Philadelphia,  Pa. 

Directors — Thomas  Boudren,  Bridgeport,  Conn.;  D.  F.  D.  Jenkins, 
Chicago,  111.;  N.  A.  McQueston,  Mansfield,  Ohio;  I.  P.  A.  Bruechert, 
Omaha,  Neb.;  Harry  B.  Bradford,  Kensington,  Md. ; Alex.  Y.  Scott, 
Rosedale,  Miss.;  John  S.  Snavely,  Lebanon,  Pa.;  Prof.  Enoch  S.  Price, 
Bryn  Athyn,  Pa. 


27 


FULL  TEXT  OF  THE  LOYSTER-TALLETT  VACCINATION 
LAW  NOW  IN  FORCE  IN  NEW  YORK  STATE. 


Laws  of  New  York. — By  Authority. 

CHAP.  133. 

AN  ACT  to  amend  the  public  health  law,  in  relation  to  vaccination. 
Became  a law  March  30,  1915,  with  the  approval  of  the  Governor.  Passed, 

three-fifths  being  present. 

The  People  of  the  State  of  New  York,  represented  in  Senate  and 
Assembly,  do  enact  as  follows: 

Section  1.  Sections  three  hundred  and  ten  and  three  hundred  and 
eleven  of  chapter  forty-nine  of  the  laws  of  nineteen  hundred  and  nine, 
entitled  “An  act  in  relation  to  the  public  health,  constituting  chapter 
forty-five  of  the  consolidated  laws,”  are  hereby  amended  to  read,  re- 
spectively, as  follows : 

§ 310.  Vaccination  of  school  children.  1.  A child  or  person  not 
vaccinated  shall  not  be  admitted  or  received  into  a school  in  a city  of 
the  first  or  second  class.  The  board,  officers  or  other  person  having 
the  charge,  management  or  control  of  such  school  shall  cause  this  pro- 
vision of  law  to  be  enforced.  The  board  of  health  or  other  board,  com- 
mission or  officers  of  such  city  having  jurisdiction  of  the  enforcement 
of  the  chapter  therein  shall  provide,  at  the  expense  of  the  city  for  the 
vaccination  of  all  pupils  of  such  school  whose  parents  or  guardian  do 
not  provide  vaccination  for  them. 

2.  Whenever  smallpox  exists  in  any  other  city  or  school  district, 
or  in  the  vicinity  thereof,  and  the  state  commissioner  of  health  shall 
certify  in  writing  to  the  school  authorities  in  charge  of  any  school  or 
schools  in  such  city  or  district,  it  shall  become  the  duty  of  such  school 
authorities  to  exclude  from  such  schools  every  child  or  person  who  does 
not  furnish  a certificate  from  a duly  licensed  physician  to  the  effect 
that  he  has  successfuly  vaccinated  such  child  or  person  with  vaccine 
virus  in  the  usual  manner  or  that  such  child  or  person  shows  evidence 
by  scar  of  a successful  previous  vaccination.  Whenever  school  authori- 
ties having  the  charge,  management  and  control  of  schools  in  a district 
or  city  cause  this  provision  of  law  to  be  enforced,  the  local  board  of 
health  shall  provide  for  the  vaccination  of  all  children  whose  parents  or 
guardian  do  not  provide  such  vaccination. 

3.  The  expense  incurred,  when  such  vaccination  is  performed 
under  the  direction  of  the  local  health  authorities,  shall  be  a charge 
upon  the  municipality  in  which  the  child  or  person  vaccinated  resided, 

28 


and  shall  be  audited  and  paid  in  the  same  manner  as  other  expenses 
incurred  by  such  municipality  are  audited  and  paid.  The  local  boards 
of  health  or  other  health  authorities  may,  in  their  discretion,  provide 
for  the  payment  of  additional  compensation  to  health  officers  perform- 
ing such  vaccination. 

§ 311.  Vaccination  how  made;  reports.  1.  No  person  shall  per- 
form vaccination  for  the  prevention  of  smallpox  who  is  not  a regularly 
licensed  physician  under  the  laws  of  the  state.  Vaccination  shall  be 
performed  in  such  manner  only  as  shall  be  prescribed  by  the  state 
commissioner  of  health. 

2.  No  physician  shall  use  vaccine  virus  for  the  prevention  of 
smallpox  unless  such  vaccine  virus  is  produced  under  license  issued 
by  the  secretary  of  the  treasury  of  the  United  States  and  is  accompanied 
by  a certificate  of  approval  by  the  state  commissioner  of  health,  and 
such  vaccine  virus  shall  then  be  used  only  within  the  period  of  time 
specified  in  such  approval. 

3.  Every  physician  performing  a vaccination  shall  within  ten  days 
make  a report  to  the  state  commissioner  of  health  upon  a form  fur- 
nished by  such  commissioner  setting  forth  the  full  name  and  age  of  the 
person  vaccinated  and,  if  such  person  is  a minor,  the  name  and  ad- 
dress of  his  parents,  the  date  of  vaccination,  the  date  of  previous  vac- 
cination if  possible,  the  name  of  the  maker  of  the  vaccine  virus  and 
the  lot  or  batch  number  of  such  vaccine  virus. 

§ 2.  This  act  shall  take  effect  immediately. 


29 


THE  LOYSTER  LAW  LEGALLY  AND  LOGICALLY  ANALYZED 
POINTS  FOR  LAWYERS  AND  LAYMEN 


We  think  that  any  competent  lawyers  who  carefully  consider  this 
vaccination  law  will  agree  that  it  is  a rich  piece  of  medical  craft  and 
graft  and  of  legal  fatuity  from  beginning  to  end. 


FIRST  POINT:  ILLEGAL  DISCRIMINATION  AGAINST  LARGE 

CITIES 

It  will  be  noted  that  the  country  legislators  who  fathered  this 
bill  discriminated  in  favor  of  themselves  and  against  citizens  in 
other  parts  of  the  state — the  ten  big  cities — so  as  to  admit  unvaccinated 
children  freely  to  all  schools  in  their  own  country  districts,  as  in 
section  310,  paragraph  2 of  the  law,  whereas  in  paragraph  1 no  un- 
vaccinated child  can  be  admitted  to  any  of  our  schools  whatever  in  the 
ten  cities  of  the  first  and  second  class ! And  yet  smallpox  is  ten  times 
more  frequent  in  country  districts  than  in  cities  and  vaccination  is 
therefore  needed  ten  times  more  in  the  country  than  in  cities  if  the 
theory  of  the  vaccinators  is  correct ! 

Such  law  is  therefore  unreasonable,  arbitrary  and  discriminating 
and  of  course  no  law  making  such  arbitrary,  class,  and  local  distinctions 
can  be  legal  or  constitutional  as  before  stated.  See  interesting  opinion 
of  Justice  Woodward  on  this  very  point  on  “Magna  Charta”  and  the 
“law  of  the  land”  in  the  decision  of  the  Appellate  Court  in  case  of 
Viemeister  in  1903. 

SECOND  POINT:  ILLEGAL  AND  EXCESSIVE  PENALTY 

The  “penalty”  which  this  law  ostensibly  applies  for  failure  to  sub- 
mit to  vaccination  is  to  deny  the  school  child  his  most  inalienable 
right  to  education,  and  to  the  school  teacher  his  inalienable  right 
to  earn  his  living  and  follow  his  most  important  profession  of  teach- 
ing the  child.  This  we  believe  to  be  absolutely  unconstitutional  on 
two  principles,  viz.:  1st,  That  cruel  and  unusual  punishments  cannot 
be  inflicted  and,  2d,  that  no  “franchise,”  “privilege”  or  essential 
“right”  of  any  citizen  can  be  taken  away  “unless  by  the  law  of  the  land 
or  the  judgment  of  his  peers.”  Both  of  these  prohibitions  are  in  the 
very  first  article  of  our  state  constitution,  showing  their  primal  im- 
portance in  all  valid  law. 


30 


We  therefore  very  much  doubt  whether  the  violation  of  any 
mere  rule  of  so-called  “police  power”  or  “public  health”  can  be  penal- 
ized in  this  extraordinary  fashion  by  taking  away  some  fundamental 
or  primal  right  of  the  citizen.  Such  rule  can  obviously  be  legally 
enforced  only  by  some  penalty  which  is  not  “excessive,”  “cruel”  or 
“unusual,”  such  for  example  as  that  of  a specific  fine  which  is  not  in 
itself  “excessive.”  The  law  of  Massachusetts  for  example  is  a speci- 
men of  such  a rational  or  constitutional  law  where  it  is  attempted  to 
enforce  the  vaccination  rule  only  by  a fine  of  five  dollars.  And  it 
will  be  remembered  that  the  highest  court  of  that  state  in  passing 
on  this  law  decided  that  while  the  fine  might  be  legally  enforced  and 
collected,  yet  the  state  could  not  compel  or  enforce  the  actual  vaccina- 
tion of  any  person  who  objected  to  the  operation. 

And  remember  also  that  the  learned  court  gave  this  decision  under 
the  false  idea,  into  which  it  was  misled  by  false  medical  authority,  that 
vaccination  was  ordinarily  perfectly  safe  and  harmless  and  only  “theo- 
retically” capable  of  the  “possibility  of  injury.”  What  would  this 
learned  court  have  said  on  this  law  if  it  realized  the  easily  demon- 
strated truth  that  vaccination  is  actually  more  dangerous  than  small- 
pox and  now  kills  more  children  every  year  than  smallpox? 

It  may  be  further  noted  that  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  passed  on  this  case — Jacobson  vs.  Massachusetts — in  1904,  with 
a divided  opinion,  the  majority  holding  that  to  enforce  a rule  for 
vaccination  by  a fine  was  constitutional,  but  Judges  Brewer  and  Peck- 
ham  dissented  to  this  evidently  holding  that  all  vaccination  must  be  free 
and  voluntary  under  our  national  constitution.  The  majority  of  the 
court  also  decided  that  vaccination  could  not  be  enforced  if  it  were 
dangerous  to  health  or  life. 

THIRD  POINT:  VACCINATION  CANNOT  BE  LEGALLY 
FORCED  EXCLUSIVELY  ON  ONE  SPECIAL  CLASS  OR 
PART  OF  THE  POPULATION  WITHOUT  ANY  SPECIAL 
REASON  OR  JUSTIFICATION. 

It  must  be  here  specially  noted  that  the  aforesaid  law  of  Massa- 
chusetts applies  to  all  classes  of  the  population  generally  and  is  not 
arbitrarily  limited  to  one  or  two  classes,  as  in  our  absurd  vaccination 
law,  which  is  limited  to  pupils  and  teachers  in  our  schools,  as  if  school 
children  and  teachers  were  the  only  part  of  the  population  that  were 
subject  to  smallpox  and  therefore  must  be  specially  protected  from  it 
by  forcing  them  to  be  vaccinated  under  penalty  of  abandoning  their 

31 


primal  rights — a penalty  which  is  not  applied  to  any  other  part  of  the 
population ! I have  already  shown  that  the  school  age  to  which  this 
absurd  law  specially  applies  is,  on  the  contrary,  the  very  section  of  the 
population  which  is  least  subject  to  smallpox  and  has  the  greatest  natu- 
ral immunity  against  this  disease  and  all  other  causes  of  death,  so  much 
so  that  it  shows  regularly  every  year  only  about  five  per  cent,  of  the 
total  mortality,  although  it  constitutes  one-quarter  of  the  whole  popu- 
lation. 

SCHOOL  CHILDREN  MOST  VITAL  AND  IMMUNE  PART 
OF  THE  POPULATION 

To  prove  this  most  significant  point,  I herewith  annex  a diagram 
from  the  annual  report  of  our  State  Dept,  of  Health  for  1912,  show- 
ing the  total  deaths  from  all  causes  in  the  ten  million  population  of 
this  state  and  the  proportional  deaths  in  each  age  class. 

Death  Rate  and  Per  Cent  of  Deaths  at  Different 
Age  Periods 

1912 

State  of  New  York 


Age  Period 

No.  of  Deaths 

Death  rate  per 
1000  living 
at  all  ages 

Per  cent  of 
total 

mortality 

Under  1 Year 

24,681 

2.6 

17.3 

1 

year  to  5 years 

10,106 

mm 

1.1 

7.1 

5 

“ 10  “ 

2,707 

m 

0.3 

1.9 

10 

“ 20  “ 

4,440 

m 

0.46 

3.1 

20 

“ 40  “ 

22,544 

Bssasa 

2.35 

15.8 

40 

“ 60  “ 

31,371 

— ■ 

3.27 

22.0 

60 

“ 80  “ 

36,110 

3.7 

25.3 

Over  80 

10,279 

1.07 

7.2 

Unknown 

139 

1 

0.014 

0.097 

Total  deaths  at  all  ages  142,377  14.8  100.0- 


It  will  be  here  noted  that  the  vitality  of  the  school  age,  6 to  19, 
is  so  extraordinary  that  its  actual  mortality  from  all  causes  of  death  is 

32 


only  jive  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths,  although  this  age-class  consti- 
tutes one-quarter  of  the  whole  population,  there  being  about  two  and 
one-half  million  children  of  school  age  in  New  York  State.  This 
astounding  fact  alone,  when  properly  grasped,  is  absolutely  overwhelm- 
ing and  convincing  in  proving  the  absolute  absurdity  and  needlessness 
of  compulsory  vaccination  on  the  school  age  and  the  invalidity  of  the 
present  law,  because  not  only  has  this  age  the  lowest  natural  suscepti- 
bility to  death  from  smallpox,  but  also  to  all  other  causes  of  death, 
which  are  one  hundred  times  more  fatal  and  frequent  than  smallpox; 
and  therefore  this  age  should  not  be  arbitrarily  and  needlessly  oppressed 
by  any  class  law. 

SCHOOL  AGE  MOST  IMMUNE  TO  SMALLPOX 

To  show  that  the  school  age  has  the  greatest  relative  immunity 
from  smallpox,  as  a particular  disease,  as  it  also  has  from  all  causes 
of  death,  I will  here  give  the  list  of  total  deaths  from  smallpox  in  our 
last  greatest  epidemic  year  of  1901  in  New  York  City,  with  the  actual 
number  of  deaths  in  each  age-class  as  given  in  the  report  of  the 
Health  Department  for  that  year. 

Total  Deaths  from  smallpox,  all  ages,  in  New  York 


City  in  1901,  last  greatest  epidemic  year 410 


Deaths  under  five  years . . . 

48%  of  total.  . . 

. ..  197 

Deaths 

in  school  age,  five 

to  fifteen.  . 8%  of  total.  . . , 

...  32 

Deaths 

over  fifteen 

...  181 

100% 

410 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  in  our  last  great  epidemic  in  our  largest 
city  infants  and  adults  are  shown  to  be  most  subject  to  smallpox  while 
the  school  age  is  least  subject,  not  only  relatively  but  absolutely  and 
to  an  extraordinary  degree,  as  it  shows  only  eight  per  cent,  of  the 
total  smallpox  deaths  while  it  constitutes  one-quarter  of  the  popula- 
tion, whereas  the  infant  age  under  five  forms  only  half  this  propor- 
tion, or  about  one-eighth  of  the  population,  and  yet  shows  forty-eight 
per  cent,  or  nearly  half  of  all  the  smallpox  deaths ! 

We  have  heard  a good  deal  of  false  nonsense  from  time  to  time 
from  the  vaccination  doctors  about  vaccination  changing  the  “age  in- 
cidence” of  this  disease  from  the  infant  to  the  adult  age;  that,  whereas 
before  the  days  of  vaccination  smallpox  was  almost  purely  an  infant 
disease,  but  in  our  times  vaccination  has  so  saved  the  infant  age  from 

33 


smallpox  that  it  has  now  transferred  the  “age  incidence”  from  infants 
to  adults  and  made  modern  smallpox  chiefly  a disease  of  poorly  vac- 
cinated adults ! We  can  now  see  how  false  and  stupid  this  claim  is 
when  in  our  very  last  epidemic  year  of  1901  in  our  greatest  city  nearly 
one-half  of  all  the  smallpox  deaths  were  among  infants  and  the  least 
among  children  of  school  age,  just  as  it  was  before  the  days  of  vaccin- 
ation, which  has  made  no  serious  difference  whatever  in  the  “age  in- 
cidence” or  the  mortality  of  the  disease. 

In  attempting  to  answer  some  of  my  press  articles  of  last  year 
on  the  falsehoods  and  fatalities  of  vaccination,  Dr.  J.  Dana  Hubbard, 
of  the  City  Department  of  Health,  undertook  to  use  this  false  and  stale 
old  argument  of  change  of  “age  incidence,”  etc.,  in  a special  article  in 
the  New  York  Sun  of  June  21,  1914,  in  defense  of  vaccination.  I have 
now  shown  what  nonsense  and  fallacy  this  defense  is  and  that  Dr.  Hub- 
bard seems  to  be  grossly  ignorant  of  the  easily  accessible  records  of 
his  own  Department,  which  fully  refute  him  and  show  that  he  has 
been  simply  fooling  himself  and  the  public  with  old  moss-covered 
fallacies  of  the  vaccination  cult,  which  any  up-to-date  doctor  familiar 
with  the  real  facts  of  this  complex  subject  should  be  ashamed  to  any 
longer  repeat. 

The  false  argument  may  just  here  be  attempted  by  vaccinators 
that  the  school  age  is  relatively  immune  to  smallpox  because  it  is  more 
vaccinated  than  any  other  age,  but  this  is  false  and  absurd  for  the 
reason  that  the  school  age  shows  even  a higher  immunity  against  all 
other  causes  of  death  which  are  a hundred  times  more  fatal  and  fre- 
quent than  smallpox,  and  therefore  the  natural  immunity  and  vitality 
which  protects  it  from  these  more  frequent  and  fatal  diseases  also  pro- 
tects it  from  smallpox,  which  is,  perhaps  the  most  insignificant  of  all  our 
causes  of  death,  being  usually  exceeded  by  death  from  lightning!  And 
furthermore,  we  find  in  communities  where  little  or  no  compulsory- 
vaccination  is  placed  on  the  school  child,  such  as  in  England,  that  this 
age  shows  the  same  extraordinary  relative  immunity  against  smallpox 
and  all  other  causes  of  death. 

To  fix  this  striking  point  of  the  great  vitality  and  immunity  of 
the  school  age  firmly  in  the  mind  it  may  be  here  said,  that,  while  the 
school  age  forms  one-quarter  of  the  whole  population  and  has  only 
five  per  cent,  of  the  total  deaths,  the  infant  age  under  five  years  con- 
stitutes about  one-eighth  of  the  population  and  has  about  30  per  cent, 
of  the  total  deaths,  whereas,  the  adult  ages  over  20  constitute  about 
five-eighths  of  the  population  and  have  about  65  per  cent.,  or  five- 
eighths,  of  the  total  deaths.  In  other  words,  the  mortality  of  the 

34 


adult  age  is  normal , or  directly  proportional  to  its  numbers  in  the  popu- 
lation, while  the  mortality  of  the  infant  age  is  abnormal  or  far  beyond 
its  proportion  in  the  population , whereas  the  mortality  of  the  school  age 
is  most  remarkably  sub-normal  or  much  less  than  its  proportion  in  the 
population. 

RELATIVE  DANGERS  FROM  SMALLPOX,  LIGHTNING  AND 

LOCKJAW. 

It  may  be  worth  while  here  to  show  the  relative  insignificance  of 
smallpox  as  a cause  of  death  in  this  State  by  comparing  it  with  deaths 
from  Lightning,  Murder  and  Lockjaw,  and  I here  give  the  actual  fatal 
figures  on  these  four  causes  for  the  last  four  years,  as  reported  in  the 
official  State  Reports : 

Smallpox  Lightning  Homicide  Lockjaw 


1910 

7 deaths 

16  deaths 

606  deaths 

94  deaths 

1911 

3 “ 

30 

449 

114 

1912 

4 “ 

21 

434 

97 

1913 

1 “ 

13 

461 

111 

It  will  be  readily  seen  from  these  figures  that  there  is  six  times  more 
danger  of  being  struck  by  lightning  than  of  being  killed  by  smallpox,  and 
one  hundred  times  more  danger  of  being  killed  by  murder  and  over 
twenty-five  times  more  danger  of  being  killed  by  lockjaw.  Lockjaw  is 
therefore  many  times  more  dangerous  than  smallpox,  and  to  this  serious 
danger  every  vaccinated  person  in  this  State  is  subjected,  for,  as  a matter 
of  demonstrable  fact,  at  least  ten  per  cent  of  all  lockjaw  deaths  are  caused 
by  vaccination  wounds.  These  facts  and  figures  therefore  clearly  prove 
that  lockjaw  is  a much  more  serious  danger  and  more  frequent  cause  of 
death  in  this  State  than  smallpox,  and  that  a person  who  remains 
unvaccinated  in  this  State  of  New  York  and  province  of  Long  Island, 
where  the  lockjaw  infection  is  so  widely  diffused,  stands  far  less  chance 
of  death  than  the  person  who  foolishly  allows  himself  or  his  child  to  be 
scared  into  the  greater  danger  of  vaccination  as  an  alleged  protection 
from  the  rare  disease  of  smallpox  of  which  there  is  six  times  less  danger 
of  death  than  of  being  struck  by  lightning  and  twenty-five  times  less 
danger  of  death  than  of  being  killed  by  lockjaw! 

VACCINATION  FOR  VOTERS  ^ 

In  closing  this  point  I will  finally  ask : What  would  any  lawyer, 
jurist  or  citizen  think  of  a law  which  would  make  the  “right”  or 
“privilege”  to  register  and  vote  to  depend  on  a “certificate”  of  “suc- 
cessful vaccination”  and  which  would  take  away  the  right  of  suffrage 

35 


unless  the  voter  would  consent  to  be  vaccinated  and  produce  such 
doctor’s  certificate,  at  so  much  per  head,  to  add  to  the  profits  of  the 
doctors  and  the  vaccine  makers?  Yet  if  the  theories  of  the  vaccina- 
tors are  correct  such  a law  is  needed  five  times  more  for  voters  and 
adults  than  for  school  children,  as  voters  and  adults  are  at  least  five 
times  more  susceptible  to  smallpox  and  all  other  diseases  than  the 
school  age,  which  is  the  most  vital  and  immune  age  in  the  population 
and  the  least  in  need  of  any  vaccination,  as  already  proved. 

FOURTH  POINT  > THE  THEORY  THAT  VACCINATION  PRE- 
VENTS SMALLPOX,  WHETHER  RIGHT  OR  WRONG, 
DOES  NOT  JUSTIFY  ANY  LAW  WHICH  FORCES  VAC- 
CINATION ARBITRARILY  AND  UNREASONABLY  ON 
ONE  CLASS  ONLY  OF  THE  POPULATION. 

On  this  point  it  may  be  proper  to  quote  the  highest  Court  decision 
so  far  rendered  in  this  State  on  the  law  of  school  vaccination  and 
which  has  been  much  misunderstood,  viz. : the  decision  of  the  Court  of 
Appeals  in  the  case  of  Veimeister  in  1904.  This  court  did  not  con- 
strue the  several  points  considered  by  the  Appellate  Court  in  this  same 
case,  as  before  referred  to,  but  gave  its  decision  on  practically  one 
point  only,  which  is  expressed  in  its  concluding  paragraph  as  follows: 

“While  we  do  not  decide  and  cannot  decide  that  vaccination  is  a 
preventive  of  smallpox,  we  take  judicial  notice  of  the  fact  that  this  is 
the  common  belief  of  the  people  of  the  state,  and  with  this  fact  as  a 
foundation,  we  hold  that  the  Statute  in  question  is  a health  law  en- 
acted in  a reasonable  and  proper  exercise  of  the  police  power.” 

I do  not  intend  to  here  criticise  this  decision  in  any  way  but  will 
only  now  call  close  attention  to  the  remarkable  legal  doctrine  therein 
stated,  viz.:  that  if  a majority  of  the  people  of  this  state  believe  in  a 
certain  medical  theory,  or  doctrine  of  public  health,  they  can  force 
that  doctrine  through  the  “police  power”  of  the  state  upon  a minority 
that  does  not  believe  it.  Now  assuming  this  doctrine  to  be  true,  in  a 
limited  measure,  surely  it  is  not  true,  and  was  not  intended  by  the 
court  to  be  held  true,  in  an  unlimited  measure  or  to  the  extent  of  in- 
vading or  denying  essential  rights  guaranteed  explicitly  by  constitu- 
tions and  charters  or  distinctly  implied  in  any  of  the  great  Declara- 
tions of  the  people?  And  furthermore,  if  such  medical  or  health  doc- 
trine or  dogma  can  be  legally  forced  by  a majority  of  believers  upon 
a minority  of  unbelievers,  it  surely  cannot  be  legally  enforced  on  one 
class  only  of  these  believers  or  unbelievers,  but  must  be  put  on  both 


36 


believers  and  unbelievers  justly  and  evenly.  I have  already  shown 
that  our  vaccination  law  has  never  been  placed  on  a majority  of  the 
believers  or  unbelievers  and  yet  the  learned  Court  of  Appeals  has 
assumed  that  the  majority  of  the  people  of  the  state  believe  that  vac- 
cination prevents  smallpox  and  is  necessary  to  prevent  it.  Now  if  they 
really  believe  this,  how  is  it  that  this  “majority”  has  never  placed  a law 
of  coercive  vaccination  on  all  the  people  of  the  state  or  even  on  a ma- 
jority of  either  believers  or  unbelievers,  but  have  placed  it  only  on  one- 
quarter  section  of  the  people — the  school  children — which  actually 
need  this  protection  least  of  all;  whereas  the  three-quarters  of  the  pop- 
ulation which  are  most  subject  to  smallpox — five  times  more  so  by 
actual  statistical  record  of  all  epidemics — are  left  entirely  without  this 
alleged  protection  of  coercive  vaccination?  If  coercive  vaccination  is 
therefore  necessary  to  prevent  smallpox,  as  alleged  to  be  the  actual 
belief  of  the  people  of  this  state,  this  purpose  will  surely  never  be 
accomplished  by  any  absurd  and  partial  law  which  puts  this  alleged 
protection  on  the  one-quarter  of  least  susceptibles  and  leaves  it  off  the 
three-quarters  of  most  susceptibles ! There  is  therefore  something  radi- 
cally wrong  with  this  whole  legal  and  medical  theory,  which  surely 
does  not  fit  the  facts,  so  that  notwithstanding  the  fact  that  coercive 
vaccination — the  only  alleged  remedy  to  prevent  smallpox — has  never 
been  placed  in  this  state  on  the  three-quarters  of  our  population  which 
is  most  subject  to  smallpox,  yet  smallpox  has  steadily  declined  in  this 
State  and  has  declined  even  more  in  other  states  and  cities  where  no 
coercive  vaccination  has  been  enforced  on  any  part  of  the  population. 

Even  if  we  admit  freely  that  vaccination  prevents  smallpox,  and 
is  necessary  to  prevent  it,  yet  this  would  not  justify  any  partial  law 
that  puts  coercive  vaccination  arbitrarily  on  one  section  of  the  popu- 
lation only  and  that  section  the  very  one  that  least  needs  it  but  this, 
we  submit,  would  be,  per  contra,  a good  reason  for  condemning  and 
invalidating  that  law  as  a matter  of  legal  and  constitutional  propriety, 
which  point  our  courts  have  yet  to  pass  upon. 

It  is,  however,  really  irrelevant  to  the  main  issue — the  validity  of 
coercive  vaccination — whether  vaccination  is  or  is  not  a preventive  of 
smallpox,  and  we  might  admit  that  it  is  a preventive,  to  a certain 
limited  extent,  or  even  more  so,  and  yet  coercive  vaccination  might  be 
absolutely  illegal  and  non-enforceable  on  other  grounds,  and  one  of 
these  grounds  is  expressed  in  the  next  point. 


37 


FIFTH  POINT:  INFLICTING  A WOUND  AND  DISEASE, 
COERCIVELY,  IS  AN  ILLEGAL  ACT 


This  important  point  is : that  vaccination  consists  in  the  bodily 
infliction  of  a wound  and  disease  which  is  per  se,  dangerous  to 
life  and  health  and  frequently  kills  and  therefore  can  not  be  legally 
forced  on  any  person.  As  an  historic  and  legal  example  of  this 
point  we  might  cite  the  practice  of  smallpox  inoculation,  which 
preceded  vaccination,  and  which  flourished  over  a century  under  the 
approval  of  the  highest  medical  authorities  of  the  time,  and  which  it 
was  freely  admitted  gave  considerable  protection  against  natural  small- 
pox, like  the  bovine  vaccination  of  to-day,  yet  this  practice  of  inocula- 
tion was  finally  declared  to  be  illegal  and  was  prohibited  by  penal 
law  because  it  was  found  to  be  very  dangerous  to  human  health  and 
life  and  really  more  dangerous  than  natural  smallpox,  and  actually  in- 
creased smallpox,  which  declined  rapidly  as  soon  as  this  inoculation 
was  abandoned. 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  point  is  fully  supported  by  the  decision 
of  the  highest  court  in  the  country,  the  U.  S.  Supreme  Court,  in  the 
case  of  Jacobson  vs.  Massachusetts  in  1904,  which  clearly  declared 
that  vaccination  can  not  be  forced  on  any  person  who  can  show  that 
it  is  dangerous  to  health  or  life,  which  it  is,  per  se,  in  every  case. 

All  Vaccination  Potentially  Dangerous  or  Deadly 

Vaccination  is  nothing  more  or  less  than  “Purulent  Infection  and 
Septicemia, ” which  is  a regular  cause  of  death  in  our  yearly  death  lists 
and  shows  about  300  deaths  every  year  in  this  State.  Under  this  head 
and  under  the  head  of  Lockjaw  or  “Tetanus”  and  some  other  septic 
diseases  many  deaths  from  vaccination  are  included  and  concealed  every 
year  by  our  falsifying  doctors,  who  so  foully  tell  us  that  vaccination  is 
perfectly  safe  and  harmless. 

To  show  that  vaccination  is  authoritatively  recognized  as  essentially 
equivalent  to  Pyaemia  and  Septicemia  (which  names  mean  general  and 
local  blood  poisoning),  I will  mention  this  most  significant  fact  that  in 
the  reports  of  the  Registrar-General  of  England,  which  is  the  highest 
statistical  authority  in  the  English  speaking  world,  that  many  vaccination 
deaths  are  regularly  acknowledged  every  year,  and  these  deaths  are  now 
classified  under  a sub-head  of  Pyaemia-Septicemia  which  is  numbered  20 
in  the  International  List  of  Causes  of  Death,  and  the  deaths  under  this 
general  head  are  divided  and  classified  as  follows:  Pyaemia  No.  20A, 

38 


Septicemia  No.  20B,  Vaccinia  No.  20C.  And  under  this  latter  sub-head, 
and  other  heads,  more  deaths  of  children  are  recorded  from  vaccina- 
tion almost  every  year  than  from  smallpox  itself!  (See  page  19  herein.) 

SIXTH  POINT:  FALSE  DOCTRINE  OF  “POLICE  POWER”  TO 
INFLICT  DISEASE  OR  DEATH  IN  THE  FALSE  NAME  OF 
“PUBLC  HEALTH.” 

INHERENT  AND  CONSTITUTIONAL  RIGHTS  OF  THE 
PEOPLE  SUPERIOR  TO  ALL  POLICE  POWER  OF  THE 
LEGISLATURE  WHICH  CANNOT  INVADE  THESE  RIGHTS. 

We  have  heard  a good  deal,  both  in  and  out  of  court,  of  the  alleged 
“Police  Power”  of  the  Legislature  to  inflict  compulsory  vaccination  in 
some  form  or  other  upon  the  people,  but  we  have  yet  to  find  any  decision 
of  any  court — certainly  not  from  our  State  courts  or  from  the  U.  S. 
Supreme  Court — which  declares  that  the  Legislature  has  any  “police 
power”  to  compel  any  one  to  be  vaccinated,  but  the  courts  have  decided 
the  very  reverse,  as  already  shown,  and  particularly  if  it  can  be  proved 
that  vaccination  is  dangerous  to  health  and  life,  which  danger  I have 
already  demonstrated  potentially  exists  in  every  case  beyond  question. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  true  and  legal  “Police  Power”  can  only  be 
exercised  to  save  the  public  from  harm  or  danger,  to  keep  disease  or 
harm  from  the  people,  to  protect  them  in  their  undoubted  rights,  to  pro- 
mote public  health,  safety  and  welfare  and  not  to  force  disease,  injury  or 
death  upon  the  people  or  to  invade  any  of  their  rights  in  any  serious  way ; 
and  it  needs  no  argument  to  show  that  to  inflict  a wound  upon  the 
healthy  human  body  and  to  inoculate  a dangerous  disease  into  this  wound 
which  may  infect  the  whole  body  and  destroy  health  or  life  is  the  most 
flagrant  invasion  of  the  most  sacred  and  important  public  and  personal 
rights  conceivable,  which  surely  cannot  be  legally  justified  or  sustained 
in  any  way,  no  matter  what  is  the  alleged  motive  or  purpose  of  this 
wounding  and  diseasing.  And,  of  course,  this  evil  of  compulsory  vac- 
cination would  never  have  had  the  least  toleration  in  our  courts  were  it 
not  that  the  minds  of  our  courts  have  been  grossly  misled  from  the  first 
by  medical  falsifiers  to  regard  vaccination  as  a purely  beneficial  and 
entirely  harmless  operation  which  is  absolutely  necessary  for  public 
health,  both  of  which  propositions  are  most  stupid  and  dangerous  fasle- 
hoods,  as  I have  already  demonstrated.  Modern  Bovine  Vaccination  is, 
in  fact,  not  essentially  different  from  Smallpox  Inoculation  which,  as 
already  shown,  was  prohibited  by  penal  law  as  being  highly  dangerous 

39 


to  public  health  after  over  a century  of  use  and  approval  by  the  highest 
medical  authorities  of  the  past  century,  and  it  would  perhaps  not  be 
difficult  to  now  prove  that  our  modern  vaccination  is  actually  more 
dangerous  to  man  and  beast  than  the  old  inoculation  was,  as  it  has  never 
been  recorded  that  inoculation  was  responsible  for  great  cattle  plagues  of 
foot  and  mouth  disease,  which  vaccination  has  already  caused  several 
times  in  this  country  in  1902,  1908  and  1914,  as  before  shown.  See 
Year  Book,  U.  S.  Dept,  of  Agriculture,  1914,  p.  20. 

SEVENTH  POINT:  SEVERAL  CONSTITUTIONAL  PRO- 
VISIONS INVADED  BY  THE  LOYSTER  LAW. 

It  may  be  proper  in  this  point  to  briefly  consider  the  several  sec- 
tions of  our  national  and  state  constitutions  which  are  clearly  violated 
by  this  evil  law  of  compulsory  disease  placed  arbitrarily  on  one  mere 
section  or  class  of  the  population,  viz.,  on  school  children  and  other 
inmates  of  schools. 

Article  IV.  of  the  National  Constitution  states:  “The  right  of  the 
people  to  be  secure  in  their  persons,  houses,  paper  and  effects,  against 
unreasonable  searches  and  seizures  shall  not  be  violated.”  Surely  to 
search  for  and  seize  a healthy  and  harmless  school  child,  who  is  unvaccin- 
ated, and  force  him  out  of  school  and  deny  him  his  unalienable  right  to 
education  unless  he  will  submit  willingly  or  by  force  to  this  barbarous  act 
of  compulsory  wounding  and  diseasing  of  his  body — surely  this  act  or 
law  of  forced  or  coercive  vaccination  is  clearly  forbidden  by  this  Article 
IV.  of  the  U.  S.  Constitution. 

In  Article  VIII.  another  distinct  prohibition  is  given,  which  applies 
clearly  to  compulsory  vaccination  as  a condition  for  the  exercise  of  this 
inalienable  right  of  education : “Excessive  bail  shall  not  be  required,  nor 
excessive  fines  imposed,  nor  cruel  and  unusual  punishments  inflicted.” 
This  same  provision  is  repeated  in  Article  I.,  Section  5 of  the  State  Con- 
stitution, and  has  been  already  partly  considered  in  our  Second  Point. 

Now  it  will  be  noted  that  this  evil  school  vaccination  law  punishes 
the  refusal  to  submit  to  vaccination — which  all  our  courts  have  decided 
the  citizen  has  full  right  to  refuse  and  which  the  state  or  legislature  has 
no  power  whatever  to  compel — by  denial  of  the  indispensable  and  inalien- 
able right  of  the  child  to  his  education,  which  is  obviously  his  most 
important  and  essential  right  and  which  cannot  be  legally  or  morally 
taken  away  from  him  by  any  power  whatever  in  this  State,  and  the 
attempt  to  take  it  away  would  obviously  be  the  most  flagrant  and  stupid 
violation  of  sound  public  policy  conceivable.  Is  it  not  therefore  a most 

40 


cruel  and  unusual  and  stupid  punishment — worthy  only  of  the  most 
fanatical  and  barbarous  ages  of  human  slavery  and  compulsory  religion 
to  punish  refusal  to  vaccinate  (which  every  citizen  has  the  right  to 
refuse  and  no  power  in  the  state  can  compel),  by  denial  of  the  right 
of  education  to  the  child  and  the  right  of  the  parent  to  have  his  child  edu- 
cated? Is  there  not,  in  fact,  an  inalienable  and  self-evident  right  in  the 
parent  to  educate  his  child  and  in  the  child  to  get  an  education  and  that 
this  right  of  parent  and  child  cannot  possibly,  under  our  fundamental  law, 
be  taken  away  from  them  by  any  medical  dogmatism  which  strives  to 
force  upon  them  any  medical  operation  whatever  as  a condition  for  edu- 
cation, whether  this  operation  be  considered  sometimes  beneficial  or 
frequently  doubtful,  dangerous  or  fatal. 

In  this  connection  it  is  very  significant  that  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence refers  to  “certain”  unalienable  rights  “among  which”  are  life, 
liberty  and  pursuit  of  happiness.  This  clearly  intimates  that  there  are 
other  individual  rights  inherent  in  the  people  besides  those  stated,  which 
are  equally  unalienable  and  cannot  be  violated  by  any  power  but  must 
be  respected  and  protected  by  all  governments;  and  this  point  is  clearly 
re-stated  and  emphasized  in  Articles  IX.  and  X.  of  the  U.  S.  Constitu- 
tion, which  say : 

“The  enumeration  in  the  Constitution  of  certain  rights  shall  not  be 
construed  to  deny  or  disparage  others  retained  by  the  people.” 

“The  powers  not  delegated  to  the  United  States  by  the  Constitution, 
nor  prohibited  by  it  to  the  States,  are  reserved  to  the  States  respectively, 

or  to  the  people.” 

Surely,  therefore,  the  right  of  the  child  to  an  education  and  the  right 
of  the  parent  to  educate  his  child  is  one  of  these  inherent  rights  in  parent 
and  child  which  cannot  be  taken  away  by  any  evil  law  which  forces  a 
dangerous  medical  operation  upon  the  school  child  or  his  teacher  and 
which  is  not  forced  on  any  other  part  of  the  population;  and  it  is  there- 
fore believed  that,  for  the  several  reasons  here  stated,  our  courts,  if 
properly  appealed  to  on  the  proper  issues  herein  suggested,  will  have  no 
hesitation  in  invalidating  this  Loyster  Law  as  a most  flagrant  violation  of 
inherent  and  constitutional  rights  which  may  be  briefly  expressed  and 
condensed  into  these  two  propositions : 


PROPOSITION  FIRST. 


The  right  of  every  child  to  an  education  and  the  right  of  every 
parent  to  have  his  child  educated  are  inherent  and  unalienable  rights 

41 


and  cannot  be  legally  made  dependent  on  the  acceptance  of  any  medical 
dogma  or  operation,  even  if  beneficial,  and  particularly  not  when  dang- 
erous to  health  and  life  and  frequently  a cause  of  death. 

PROPOSITION  SECOND 

Any  law  which  forces  a compulsory  wound  and  inoculable  disease  on 
the  human  body  against  free  will  and  consent  or,  as  a condition  for  the 
exercise  of  any  right  or  privilege  of  any  citizen,  which  is  dangerous  to 
life,  obviously  violates  clear  constitutional  provisions  and  is  also  clearly 
criminal  under  common  law  and  the  Penal  Code  and  is  therefore  abso- 
lutely against  private  right  and  public  policy  and  consequently  invalid 
and  non-enforceable  on  broad  legal  and  equitable  principles. 

EIGHTH  POINT:  ILLEGAL  MEDICAL  GRAFT  IN  DOUBLE 
COMPENSATION  TO  HEALTH  OFFICERS 

It  will  be  noted  on  reading  paragraph  3 in  section  310  of  the 
Loyster  law  that  an  unblushing  provision  of  illegal  medical  graft  ap- 
pears boldly  and  stupidly  in  gross  violation  of  the  State  Constitution, 
in  these  words : “The  local  boards  of  health  * * may  * * 
provide  for  the  payment  of  additional  compensation  to  health  officers 
performing  such  vaccination.”  In  other  words,  the  vaccinating  doc- 
tors or  health  officers  may,  in  addition  to  their  regular  salaries  or 
compensation,  be  paid  extra  for  every  public  vaccination  performed ! 
Medical  graft  is  thus  clearly  streaked  all  through  this  bill  for,  in  addi- 
tion to  taking  the  enforcement  of  the  vaccination  law  from  the  dis- 
cretionary hands  of  the  school  officers,  who  have  no  pecuniary  interest 
in  enforcing  vaccination,  it  is  now  turned  over  to  the  mandatory  power 
of  the  health  officers,  who  can  get  up  a smallpox  scare  and  vac- 
cination raid  at  any  time  on  the  alleged  appearance  of  one  little  case 
of  smallpox  or  pseudo-smallpox  in  any  town  or  city,  and  thus  reap 
a rich  reward  of  double  pay  for  every  vaccination  performed ! Was 
there  ever  a more  disgraceful,  “raw/’  or  illegal  form  of  medical  graft 
forced  upon  the  people  than  in  this  clause,  for  which  Mr.  Loyster  and 
his  bill  drafting  allies  in  the  State  Department  of  Health  seem  to  be 
wholly  responsible?  The  suffering  people  of  this  State,  still  grieving 
for  the  loss  of  their  precious  children  killed  in  the  last  vaccination  raid, 
can  rest  easy,  however,  in  the  assurance  that  after  this  exposure  they 
probably  need  fear  no  further  menace  now  from  this  stupid  law  which 
we  believe  no  Court  will  allow  to  be  enforced  in  this  State  by  reason 
of  its  many  illegal  and  unconstitutional  features,  already  pointed  out, 
including  this  latter  point  of  medical  graft  and  double  compensation, 
which  is  clearly  prohibited  in  Article  3,  Section  28,  of  the  State 
Constitution.  See  also  Article  10,  Section  9. 

42 


NINTH  POINT:  OTHER  POSSIBLE  MEDICAL  GRAFT  IN 
EXCLUSIVE  USE  OF  SPECIAL  VIRUS 


Not  only  does  the  Loyster  Law  give  the  vaccinating  doctors 
double  fees  for  every  public  vaccination  performed,  which  means  an 
enormous  sum  for  the  doctors,  with  forced  vaccination  inflicted  on  all 
school  children  in  this  State,  but  also  gives  the  State  Health  Commis- 
sioner sole  power  to  prescribe  the  particular  brand  or  brands  of  virus 
to  be  used  in  the  State!  See  paragraph  2,  section  311.  He  could 
therefore,  for  example,  allow  only  the  Lederle  brand  of  virus,  which  is 
made  in  this  State  by,  or  under  the  name  of,  a former  Health  Com- 
missioner of  New  York  City,  Dr.  Ernst  J.  Lederle,  under  whose 
administration  the  present  State  Commissioner  of  Health,  Dr.  Biggs, 
was  a subordinate  officer  for  many  years  in  New  York  City.  Com- 
missioner Biggs  could  therefore  order  that  only  the  Lederle,  or  some 
other  favorite  virus,  could  be  used  for  vaccinating  any  one  of  our  ten 
millions  in  this  State,  and  he  could  forbid  the  use  of  the  Mulford  or 
Parke-Davis  viruses,  which  are  made  in  other  States  and  are  the  viruses 
now  most  used  in  this  State  and  have  been  used,  as  testified  by  Mr. 
Loyster,  at  the  legislative  hearing  on  his  Bill,  in  most  of  the  fatal  cases 
of  vaccination  in  this  State  in  1914,  and  were  also  the  viruses  which 
have  caused  some  of  the  great  epidemics  of  foot  and  mouth  disease  in 
cattle  throughout  this  and  other  states  in  1908,  as  shown  in  U.  S. 
Government  reports,  Bureau  of  Animal  Industry,  of  1908.  This  is  a 
rather  needless  or  dangerous  power  to  give  to  any  State  Commissioner, 
particularly  after  the  U.  S.  Government  has  already  passed  upon  each 
brand  of  virus  and  inspected  and  approved  it;  and  if  this  double  inspec- 
tion and  approval  by  the  Nation  and  State  is  necessary,  this  fact  will 
only  go  to  show  how  dangerous,  indeed,  these  products  are  to  the  health 
and  life  of  man  and  beast.  It  will  be  readily  seen,  however,  that  this  ex- 
clusive power  to  prescribe  the  use  of  any  particular  virus  in  this  State, 
notwithstanding  the  Government  approval,  might  lead  to  great  medical 
graft,  and,  with  a compulsory  vaccination  law  in  all  schools  in  this 
State,  public  and  private,  could  make  a fortune  for  a favorite  brand 
of  virus,  like  the  Lederle  brand  for  instance,  and  for  the  doctors  or 
health  officials  who  might  be  interested  in  the  stock  of  such  a com- 
pany. The  possible  graft,  therefore,  in  this  feature  of  the  Loyster  Law 
is  obvious  and,  we  believe,  needs  no  further  comment,  except  to  here 
suggest  that  the  people  of  this  State  have  a right  to  know  whether 
any  of  our  health  officials  are  now,  or  have  been,  interested  in  any 
vaccine  companies,  directly  or  indirectly. 

TENTH  POINT:  ONLY  ONE  GOOD  FEATURE  OF  THE 
LOYSTER  LAW— RECORD  OF  VACCINATIONS 

We  are  glad  that  there  is  at  least  one  feature  of  this  law  that  is  not 
bad  and  can  be  approved,  and  this  occurs  in  the  third  and  last  para- 

43 


graph  in  section  311,  which  provides  for  a record  of  all  vaccinations 
made  and  compels  the  doctors  to  record  not  only  the  name  and  address 
of  the  child  and  its  parents,  but  also  the  date  of  last  and  previous 
vaccinations,  the  brand  of  virus  used  and  its  lot,  mark  or  number,  so 
that  it  can  be  readily  identified  if  trouble  is  afterwards  caused  by  it  in 
the  vaccination  of  the  child.  Like  a vicious  dog,  therefore,  this  Loyster 
Law  seems  to  be  harmless  only  at  the  tail  end  but  very  dangerous  in 
front.  This  provision  at  the  tail  end,  however,  for  a record  of  the 
virus  used  is  itself  of  very  little  value,  and  does  not  go  far  enough, 
as  this  record  to  be  really  valuable  should  provide  for  a true  and  full 
report  of  the  results  of  the  vaccination  on  the  child  and  the  mention 
of  the  fact  of  any  sickness,  injury  or  death  following  the  vaccination 
and  particularly  the  mention  in  every  death  certificate  of  vaccination 
as  a primary  or  secondary  cause  of  death  whenever  it  actually  or  evi- 
dently exists  as  such  in  any  instance,  which  at  present  is  usually  shame- 
fully denied  and  concealed  by  vaccinators.  For  example,  it  is  a com- 
mon thing  where  children  die  of  vaccination,  either  as  a direct  result 
of  the  cowpox  infection  or  by  some  secondary  infection  of  lockjaw  or 
septicemia  conveyed  in  the  virus  itself  or  from  some  external  source 
in  the  environs  or  habitat  of  the  patient,  that  no  mention  whatever 
is  made  in  the  death  certificates  of  the  infecting  act  of  vaccination 
itself  as  a primary  or  secondary  cause  of  death,  which  of  course  it  is 
in  every  such  case,  but  the  cause  of  death  will  usually  be  attributed 
solely  to  the  secondary  infection  of  “Tetanus/'  “Septicemia,"  etc., 
without  any  mention  whatever  of  the  primary  disease  or  infection  of 
vaccination,  without  which  the  secondary  infection  and  death  would 
never  have  occurred.  This  is,  of  course,  in  direct  violation  of  stand- 
ard statistical  rules  governing  death  certificates  and  yet  is  commonly 
practiced  in  this  State  and  tolerated  by  our  health  officials,  interested 
in  one  way  or  another  in  vaccination,  but  this  wrong  should  be  rigidly 
prohibited  and  penalized  by  the  immediate  passage  of  a special  law. 
Now,  if  the  Loyster  Law  had  provided  for  some  such  record  as  this 
it  would  have  been  worth  while,  whereas  the  present  record  of  the  virus 
only  is  of  very  little  use  without  the  record  of  the  results  produced  by 
the  virus  on  the  victim  of  the  vaccination. 

Our  League  had  a special  bill  introduced  in  the  Legislature  a few 
years  ago  to  provide  for  this  full  record  of  virus  and  its  results,  but  it 
was  defeated  by  the  same  dangerous  medical  and  political  power  which 
seems  to  control  our  medical  legislation  and  has  given  us  all  our  evil 
compulsory  medical  laws  and  which  we  believe  has  misled  Mr.  Loyster 
into  supposing  that  he  has  made  a great  reform  in  the  present  law, 
but  which  we  think  we  have  now  shown  to  be  a tissue  of  dangerous 
medical  illegalities  and  of  medical  craft  and  graft  from  beginning  to 
end,  with  which  our  courts  will  doubtless  deal  effectually  in  due  time 
to  protect  the  most  sacred  rights  of  the  people  from  such  dangerous 
medical  domination  and  compulsion. 

44 


THE  LOCKJAW  LIE,  AND  DR.  ANDERSON'S  REPORT, 
ANSWERED.  FIVE  CHILDREN  KILLED  IN  ONE  WEEK. 


It  will  be  noted  that  the  present  pamphlet  is  confined  to  the  legal 
aspects  of  compulsory  vaccination  and  to  the  facts  which  clearly  prove 
its  dangerous  and  deadly  nature,  per  se,  and  therefore,  the  illegality 
and  criminality  of  its  enforcement  on  any  person.  In  supplementary 
second  and  third  pamphlets  now  in  press,  entitled  respectively,  “The 
Story  of  a Continental  Lie,"  and,  “Vaccination  Horrors  and  Lies,"  ex- 
tensively illustrated,  we  will  treat  other  aspects  of  this  great  and  com- 
plex subject. 

In  the  second  pamphlet  we  will  refute  the  stupid  medical  falsehood 
given  great  currency  by  some  of  our  deluded  daily  newspapers  that 
“Those  who  are  vaccinated  do  not  get  smallpox,"  and  we  will  prove 
that  the  majority  of  smallpox  cases  are  among  the  well  vaccinated  and 
the  minority  among  the  unvaccinated. 

In  the  third  pamphlet  we  will  fully  answer  the  more  recent  false- 
hoods which  we  term,  “The  Lockjaw  Lie,"  and,  “The  Phillipine  False- 
hood," to  which  some  of  our  big  deluded  editors  have  so  stupidly  and 
confidently  committed  themselves  within  the  last  two  months,  on  the 
basis  of  certain  government  reports  which  state  that  millions  of  persons 
can  be  and  are  vaccinated,  as  alleged,  in  the  Phillipine  Islands,  without 
a single  injury  or  death,  and  that  fatal  lockjaw  infection  is  never  con- 
veyed in  vaccine  virus  itself  or  caused  by  vaccination.  The  latter 
conclusion  has  been  based  on  a recent  report  by  Dr.  J.  F.  Anderson, 
of  the  U.  S.  Public  Health  Service,  which  the  falsifying  vaccinators 
have  made  much  use  of  in  attempts  to  sustain  their  favorite  and  shock- 
ing falsehood  that  vaccination  is  perfectly  safe  and  harmless  and  never 
causes  death  by  lockjaw  directly  or  indirectly,  but  which  report  we 
will  show  is  most  futile,  and  absurd  as  any  defense  of  vaccination 
against  the  impregnable  proofs  of  its  deadly  effects  through  lockjaw 
and  many  other  septic  infections  caused  both  by  the  virus  and  the 
vaccination  wound. 

As  we  now  go  to  press  the  daily  papers  of  the  last  week  (Sep- 
tember 30  to  October  7),  as  if  in  fateful  reproof  of  these  shocking 
medical  falsehoods,  report  the  deaths  of  five  children  from  lockjaw 
following  vaccination  in  the  usual  periods  of  incubation.  These  cases 
are  the  two  little  boys,  5 and  7 years,  of  Charles  Perks,  of  Burlington, 
N.  J. ; Dorothy  Klemm,  5 years,  of  148  Smart  Av.,  Flushing;  Martha 
Markusson,  5 years,  of  766  41st  St.,  Brooklyn,  and  Eleanor  Fredericks, 
6 years,  of  Fort  Wadsworth,  Staten  Island.  Thirty  children  were 
killed  by  vaccination  in  New  York  State  about  this  time  last  year,  so 
that  this  is  now  evidently  the  “open  season"  for  this  medical  slaughter 
of  the  innocents  by  compulsory  disease,  which  we  believe  will  have  to 
be  ultimately  stopped  by  criminal  proceedings  against  the  men,  high 
or  low,  who  can  be  convicted  as  responsible  for  these  medical  homi- 
cides before  our  courts  and  juries. 

45 


LETTER  TO  MR.  LOYSTER  FROM  MR.  HIGGINS  EXPOSING 
THE  EVILS  OF  THE  LOYSTER  LAW 


DEATH  OF  THE  STILLWAGGON  BOY  FROM  VACCINATION 
CITED  AS  AN  EXAMPLE  OF  MANY  OTHERS.  VACCINA- 
TORS WHO  KILL  CHILDREN  COMPARED  TO  PRESIDENT 
McKINLEY’S  ASSASSIN.  ABSURDITY  AND  WORTHLESS- 
NESS OF  THEIR  “REPORTS”  ON  SUCH  DEATHS  DEMON- 
STRATED. WARNING  AGAINST  THIS  CHILD  SLAUGHTER 
AS  BEING  A CRIME  UNDER  THE  PENAL  CODE. 

Mr.  James  A.  Loyster, 

Cazenovia,  N.  Y. 

Dear  Mr.  Loyster: 

I herewith  enclose  a copy  of  an  article  from  the  Brooklyn  Eagle 
of  March  7th,  showing  the  death  of  another  little  victim  of  vaccination 
on  the  thirteenth  day  after  the  operation,  namely,  Nathan  H.  Still- 
waggon,  son  of  John  H.  Stillwaggon,  of  317  Ward  Street,  Richmond 
Hill,  Long  Island,  N.  Y.,  aged  six. 

The  doctors,  as  you  will  see,  deny  all  responsibility  of  vaccination 
for  the  death  which  is  the  usual  medical  falsehood  in  such  cases,  which 
cries  to  Heaven  for  punishment  and  must  make  the  angels  weep  while 
the  devils  laugh;  and  this  is  another  case  to  add  to  your  collection  in 
the  next  edition  of  your  pamphlet,  which  will  now  make  27  deaths  of 
children  from  vaccination  in  this  State  in  less  than  one  year. 

ENDANGERING  LIFE  OF  CHILD  A CRIME  UNDER  PENAL 

CODE 

As  to  the  “report”  of  the  doctors  in  this  case,  you  know  what  a 
farce  these  “reports”  and  “investigations”  usually  are  and  what  an  ab- 
surdity they  are  from  a legal  and  judicial  aspect,  that  is,  the  offender 
reporting  on  and  trying  himself  and  acting  as  judge  and  jury  in  his  own 
case ! We  might  as  well  accept  an  exculpatory  report  from  Czolgosz  on 
the  killing  of  McKinley  as  accept  a report  from  our  vaccinating  doctors 
on  a vaccination  death.  These  doctors  are  all  employes  of  the  city 
and  the  city  also  makes  this  virus  which  they  use  in  their  operations. 
Now,  does  any  man  of  common  sense  expect  that  any  one  of  these  city 
employes  will  legally  and  publicly  acknowledge,  under  his  own  signa- 
ture, that  these  coercive  medical  operations,  which  they  perform  on  our 
little  frightened  children  against  the  wish  or  desire  of  their  parents, 
actually  kill  these  children?  And  does  any  one  expect  that  these  men 

46 


will  legally  and  publicly  admit  that  this  virus,  made  by  the  city,  which 
they  put  into  the  children’s  bodies  in  this  entirely  unnecessary  and 
dangerous  operation  of  vaccination,  is  actually,  per  se,  a virulent,  active 
blood  poison,  a purulent  infection  and  septicemia  pure  and  simple,  which 
is  capable  of  killing  any  child  at  any  time  within  a few  days  or  weeks, 
faster  than  the  worst  smallpox  ever  kills  them,  depending  almost  alto- 
gether on  the  constitution  and  present  condition  of  the  child  vaccinated? 
If  they  made  any  such  horrible  but  true  admission  as  this  it  would 
probably  not  be  difficult  to  convict  the  doctor  guilty  of  any  such  act  in 
about  ten  minutes  before  any  jury  in  this  vicinage,  under  Section  483  of 
the  Penal  Code  on  “Endangering  Life  or  Health  of  Child,”  and  under 
Section  1050  on  “Manslaughter.”  In  addition  to  such  criminal  prose- 
cution, the  ground  would  be  clearly  laid  for  a civil  suit  for  heavy  dam- 
ages by  the  parents  against  the  city  for  the  loss  of  their  child  caused  by 
such  dangerous  acts  of  medical  malpractice  by  its  agents  and  employes 
and  by  the  use  of  its  infecting  manufactured  product  on  the  body  of 
such  child,  which  they  so  falsely  and  foully  represent  as  perfectly  safe 
and  harmless. 

We  will,  of  course,  never  get  these  doctors  to  admit  these  facts 
and  stop  their  dangerous  practices  until  we  either  put  able  and  eminent 
laymen  at  the  head  of  our  health  departments,  who  will  compel  them 
to  tell  the  truth,  or  until  we  prosecute  them  under  our  civil  and  crim- 
inal laws  for  any  dangerous  and  illegal  acts  of  which  they  may  be 
guilty. 

THE  LOYSTER  BILL  ANALYZED  AND  CONDEMNED 

I also  enclose  the  latest  copy  of  your  amended  Bill  which,  as  you 
probably  know  by  this  time,  has  already  passed  the  Assembly.  As  you 
look  over  this  bill  you  will  readily  see  what  a fine  piece  of  work  it  is 
in  favor  of  the  vaccinators  and  against  the  life  of  school  children  in 
this  State  and  against  the  sacred  rights  of  their  parents  to  the  sanctity 
of  the  bodies,  health  and  life  of  their  children,  who  are  the  most  sacred 
possession  of  the  parent. 

In  your  address  to  the  legislators,  which  you  will  see  I have  had 
printed  for  public  circulation  under  the  title  of  “A  Heart  to  Heart 
Talk,”  you  ask  them  in  a manly  way,  “Do  you  want  to  stand  up  for  this 
old  law?  Are  you  going  to  sit  here  and  let  this  law  kill  more  children?” 
They  have  now  virtually  answered  you  in  the  amended  bill  which  your 
legislative  friends  in  the  Assembly  have  just  passed  as  an  evident  honor 
to  you : “Yes.  We  are  not  only  going  to  stand  up  for  this  old  law,  but 
we  will  make  this  old  law  four  times  worse,  so  that  it  will  apply  to 


47 


every  school,  public  or  private,  in  this  State,  and  leave  no  school  which 
any  child  can  enter  unvaccinated,  so  as  to  make  the  possible  slaughter 
of  the  children  by  this  law  and  the  possible  profits  of  the  vaccinators 
and  vaccine  mongers  four  times  more.” 

I now  therefore  ask  you  to  carefully  look  at  this  shocking  piece  of 
legislation,  which  has  been  drawn  by  yourself  and  manipulated  by  your 
coadjutors,  the  health  officials  of  this  State,  into  whose  scheme  you 
have  fallen  (against  all  my  warnings),  and  passed  by  your  legislative 
friends,  who  do  not  seem  to  know  when  they  are  made  the  victims  of 
medical  craft  and  graft,  and  who  have  now  perpetrated  one  of  the  most 
shameful  and  dangerous  pieces  of  legislation  that  has  ever  been  inflicted 
on  the  people  of  this  State  by  our  medical  autocrats. 

You  can  therefore  see  what  a splendid  monument  this  Bill  will  be 
to  your  memory  and  to  the  memory  of  your  precious  boy,  slaughtered 
by  coercive  vaccination,  if  we  should  not  be  able  to  defeat  it  and  it 
should  be  passed  by  the  Senate  and  signed  by  the  Governor. 

You  will  see  that  there  are  two  laws  in  this  bill,  one  for  big  cities 
and  one  for  the  rest  of  the  State,  and  that  by  this  cowardly  and  illegal 
division  you  have  got  a law  for  your  own  country  districts  which  is  a 
little  more  favorable  to  the  country  children  than  for  the  city  districts. 
For  the  city  districts  the  law  gives  no  escape  whatever  for  our  city 
children  but  forces  this  murderous  practice  of  coercive  vaccination  on 
every  school  child,  public  or  private.  It  therefore  now  threatens  to  put 
this  evil  on  my  own  children,  who  go  to  private  school.  While  I have 
never  yet  been  injured  by  vaccination,  because  I knew  enough  to  know 
that  almost  all  the  grounds  upon  which  compulsory  vaccination  is  based 
are  outrageous  falsehoods,  yet  I have  fought  day  and  night  for  years, 
exhausted  my  health,  and  have  spent  a fortune  in  money  for  the  benefit 
of  others  who  are  not  rich  enough  to  be  able  to  send  their  children  to 
private  school  and  escape  this  damnable  doctor-made  law;  and  yet  you 
and  your  friends  now  come  in  with  a contemptible  and  cowardly  bill 
which  will  relieve  their  own  children  in  the  country  districts  to  a cer- 
tain extent  from  the  evils  of  vaccination,  for  the  price  of  putting  this 
barbarous  evil  four-fold  stronger  on  all  the  children  of  the  big  cities, 
where  the  profits  of  the  doctors  will  be  four  times  more. 

Now,  all  I have  to  say  here  is  that,  if  you  stand  for  this  kind  of 
thing,  you  are  an  entirely  different  man  from  what  I believed  you  to  be. 
And,  of  course,  it  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  tell  you  that  I shall  oppose 
this  evil  bill  to  the  very  end,  with  my  last  ounce  of  strength,  last  idea 
of  logic  and  my  last  dollar  of  money,  until  all  this  kind  of  legislation  is 
buried  out  of  sight  of  every  decent  man  in  this  State  and  a law  passed 

48 


which  will  repeal  the  crime  of  compulsory  medical  disease  on  our  school 
children  and  make  it  as  great  a curiosity  of  a past  barbarism  as  our 
State  and  National  constitutions  now  make  the  old  barbarism  of  com- 
pulsory religion,  from  which  barbarism  the  people  suffered  so  much  in  a 
past  age,  but  not  half  as  much  as  they  now  suffer  from  the  much  more 
dangerous  barbarism  of  compulsory  disease,  forced  upon  us  by  our 
gigantic  medical  societies  and  interests,  of  which  our  health  depart- 
ments, as  now  directed,  are  part  and  parcel. 

Yours  very  truly, 

(Signed)  CHAS.  M.  HIGGINS, 
Treasurer  Anti-Vaccination  League  of  America. 

271  Ninth  St.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

March  10,  1915. 

MR.  LOYSTER’S  ANSWER 

It  is  not  necessary  that  we  here  publish  all  of  Mr.  Loyster’s 
answer  to  this  letter,  which  is  very  long  and  somewhat  involved  in  his 
effort  to  justify  what  cannot  be  justified,  but  I think  it  is  proper  to 
publish  the  first  paragraph  of  his  letter  to  show  that  he  takes  full  re- 
sponsibility for  this  law  as  his  own  special  work  and  that  I therefore 
do  him  no  injustice  in  putting  the  chief  responsibility  for  the  passage 
of  this  evil  law  on  the  man  who  seems  to  take  such  pride  in  this 
work  and  seems  to  be  so  sure  that  the  organized  coecrcive  vaccinators 
in  our  health  departments  and  medical  societies  have  not  fooled  him  in 
his  advocacy  of  their  pet  profitable  and  illegal  schemes,  which  they  have 
fully  secured  in  this  lawless  law. 

James  A.  Loyster, 

Member  Republican  State  Committee, 

Madison  County. 

Cazenovia,  N.  Y.,  March  15,  1915. 

Dear  Mr.  Higgins: 

Your  letter  of  March  10  is  received.  From  its  tenor  it  is  apparent 
that  it  is  useless  for  us  to  discuss  the  Tallett  Bill. 

As  I have  repeatedly  written  you,  this  bill  is  in  the  nature  of  a 
compromise,  and  is  not  exactly  the  bill  I would  place  on  the  statute 
books  if  I could  have  my  own  way.  It  is  my  creation,  however,  and 
with  one  exception  every  item  in  it  has  had  my  approval.  I do  not 

49 


think  you  can  expect  me  to  listen  to  the  flood  of  billingsgate  that  you 
are  pouring  out  against  a bill  that  I am  more  largely  responsible  for 
than  any  other  person  without  a feeling  of  resentment.  I do  not  feel  at 
all  flattered  at  your  assumption  that  I have  not  sufficient  brains  to 
know  whether  or  not  I am  being  hoodwinked  by  any  of  the  doctors 
connected  with  the  department  of  health.  I have  for  many  years  flat- 
tered myself  on  the  possession  of  an  ordinary  amount  of  intelligence, 
and  naturally  it  wounds  my  vanity  to  find  out  that  I am  * * * 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

(Signed)  James  A.  Loyster. 


A FEW  WORDS  FOR  MR.  LOYSTER  AND  HIS  COLLEAGUES 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  above  how  Mr.  Loyster  resents  the  idea 
that  he  or  his  colleagues,  Mr.  Tallett  or  Senator  Jones,  have  been  in 
any  way  hoodwinked  by  the  medical  powers  in  this  State  in  getting 
measures  enacted  in  the  Loyster- Jones-Tallett  Law  which  just  suit  the 
vaccination  doctors  and  which  they  have  been  trying  to  get  through  for 
years  past  against  our  successful  opposition.  Does  Mr.  Loyster,  there- 
fore, mean  to  coolly  tell  us  that  these  sinister  measures  were  and  are  his 
own  spontaneous  ideas  solely  and  purely?  And  does  he  mean  to  tell 
us  that  to  take  compulsory  vaccination  off  the  school  children  in  his  own 
little  town  of  Cazenovia,  of  two  thousand  population,  and  in  Mr. 
Tallett's  little  town  of  De  Ruyter,  of  six  hundred  population,  and  to  put 
this  medical  evil  on  every  school,  public  and  private,  in  the  ten  leading 
cities  of  the  state,  with  a population  of  six  millions,  and  with  double 
pay  to  the  doctors  for  every  public  vaccination  performed,  is  his  own 
particular  idea  of  a proper  law  to  be  passed  in  this  State  in  the  interest 
of  the  people?  And  does  he  really  think  that  this  is  good  and  noble 
and  proper  political  work  for  him  to  do  in  this  State  as  a Republican 
politician  or  Statesman,  whichever  he  may  regard  himself?  If  he  does 
think  so,  then  I am  very  sorry  for  Mr.  Loyster;  and  I thought  I had 
done  him  an  honor  in  supposing  that  this  was  not  really  his  own  work 
but  was  the  work  of  the  dangerous  organized  medical  powers  which 
commonly  fool  and  tool  our  legislators  and  also  control  our  medical 
legislation  and  our  Departments  of  Health  and  Vital  Statistics  in  this 
State,  but  which  system  must  be  soon  driven  out  of  power  by  the  people 
of  the  State  by  a radical  reform  which  will  place  able  laymen  at  the 
heads  of  these  departments  as  they  now  have  in  Democratic  England,  and 

50 


not  the  pompous  doctors  and  members  of  great  medical  societies,  as  we 
now  have  here,  who  are  professionally  interested  in  many  dangerous 
and  profitable  medical  practices  and  in  denying  and  concealing  deaths 
and  disasters  from  such  practices  and  not  in  giving  the  ten  millions  of 
people  in  this  great  state  either  Medical  Freedom  or  Medical  Truth. 

GIGANTIC  MEDICAL  INTERESTS  BEHIND  OUR  VACCINA- 
TION LAWS  MOST  DANGEROUS  POWER  IN  BODY 
POLITIC 

To  show  what  a gigantic  medical  interest  is  behind  all  our  vaccina- 
tion laws  and  is  constantly  exerting  both  an  open  and  concealed  influence 
on  our  Legislature  and  our  State  and  City  Departments  and  on  public 
opinion,  it  will  be  sufficient  to  give  a few  facts  on  this  head  to  make 
this  point  obvious. 

There  are  nine  concerns  licensed  by  the  U.  S.  Government  to  manu- 
facture vaccine  virus  in  this  country,  with  a combined  capital  of  about 
twenty  millions ! The  largest  of  these  concerns  is  the  Parke-Davis  Co. 
of  Detroit,  with  a capital  of  about  ten  millions,  and  the  next  largest  is 
the  H.  K.  Mulford  Co.  of  Philadelphia,  with  a capital  of  about  two 
millions.  These  nine  licensed  manufacturers  include  the  Health  De- 
partment of  the  City  of  New  York,  which  is  actually  engaged  in  the 
commercial  business  of  making  and  selling  vaccine  virus,  not  only  to 
doctors  here  for  private  use,  but  to  other  cities  in  the  country  for  public 
use,  in  addition  to  its  use  for  public  vaccination  in  New  York  City  and 
State.  This  list  of  licensed  manufacturers  also  includes  an  ex-Health 
Commissioner  of  New  York  City,  Dr.  Ernest  J.  Lederle,  or  his  company, 
the  Lederle  Co.,  of  170  William  Street,  New  York  City,  which  makes 
vaccine  virus  and  anti-toxins. 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  vaccine  interest  is  very  close  to  our 
department  officials,  and  that  they  actually  have  a positive  official  bias 
or  interest  in  denying  and  concealing  injuries  and  deaths  occurring, 
directly  or  indirectly,  from  the  medical  products  made  by  their  own 
departments  and  actually  put  into  the  body  and  blood  of  our  children 
in  operations  performed  by  their  own  subordinates  or  doctors,  all  em- 
ployes of  the  City  or  State! 

Now,  in  addition  to  this  gigantic  manufacturing  interest  of  nine 
vaccine  mongers,  with  nearly  twenty  millions  of  capital,  there  are  the 
gigantic  medical  societies,  both  state  and  national,  with  tens  of  thou- 
sands of  members,  which  are  in  practical  alliance  with  these  vaccine 
manufacturers  as  purchasers  and  users  of  their  products  and  also  as 

51 


the  originators,  advocates  and  maintainers  of  all  our  compulsory  vac- 
cination laws,  which  are  obviously  worth  millions  of  dollars  every 
year  to  these  vaccine  mongers  and  the  vaccinating  doctors  who  use  their 
products,  which  are  constantly  being  forced  upon  the  people  under  our 
evil  and  illegal  vaccination  laws.  It  will  be  sufficient  to  give  the  names 
and  numbers  of  these  medical  societies  to  show  what  a dangerous 
power  we  have  in  the  body  politic,  which  is  solely  responsible  for 
placing  upon  the  people  this  most  dangerous  and  illegal  oppression  of 
compulsory  medicine,  an  oppression  much  more  evil  than  compulsory 
religion  ever  was,  and  which  is  now  represented  in  the  evil  practice  of 
compulsory  vaccination  and  other  schemes  of  medical  compulsion, 
such  as  compulsory  medical  examinations,  etc.,  now  improperly  forced 
upon  the  people. 

There  is  a national  association  of  doctors,  known  as  the  “Ameri- 
can Medical  Association,”  which  has  a membership  of  40,000  doctors! 
The  head  office  of  this  society  is  in  Chicago  but  it  has  a large  mem- 
bership in  the  City  and  State  of  New  York.  In  this  State  we  have  the 
following  medical  societies : “Medical  Society  of  the  State  of  New 
York,”  7,390  members;  “Medical  Society  of  the  County  of  New  York,” 
2,515  members;  “Medical  Society  of  the  County  of  Kings,”  950  mem- 
bers; “Associated  Physicians  of  Long  Island,”  503  members.  There  are, 
of  course,  many  other  medical  societies,  but  these  are  the  chief  ones, 
more  directly  influencing  our  own  City  and  State;  and  any  one  can 
see  at  a glance  what  a menace  these  societies  are  and  what  a dangerous 
power  they  are  in  our  body  politic  when  they  are  in  fact  united  as  one 
body  in  the  advocacy  of  compulsory  medicine  in  its  various  danger- 
ous and  illegal  forms  and  particularly  in  the  evil  form  of  com- 
pulsory vaccination,  and  it  may  be  set  down  as  a fact  that  to  these 
medical  societies,  in  connection  with  the  great  vaccine  mongers,  we 
owe  all  our  compulsory  vaccination  laws.  Experienced  legislators  have 
informed  me  that  this  gigantic  medical  power  has  the  most  complete 
organization  and  lobbying  system  for  influencing  legislation  of  any  in- 
terest in  the  State,  as  we  have  seen  partly  illustrated  in  the  passage  of 
the  evil  Loyster  Law. 

The  history  of  our  compulsory  vaccination  law  shows  that  this 
was  first  passed  in  1860  and  has  ever  since  been  on  our  statute  books 
with  some  slight  changes  until  it  was  superseded  by  the  present  Loyster 
Law,  and  it  was  originally  passed  simply  on  petition  from  the  Medical 
Society  of  the  State  of  New  York  and  was  rushed  through  the  Legis- 
lature and  signed  by  the  Governor  in  a few  days  without  any  public 
consideration  or  hearing  whatever.  Numerous  efforts  have  been  made 
by  the  people  of  this  State  at  different  times  during  the  last  ten  or  more 
years  to  have  this  evil  law  repealed,  but  it  has  been  constantly  opposed 
by  this  same  gigantic  medical  power,  which  profits  immensely  by  such 
laws,  and  which  power  has  been  generally  able  to  continue  such  evil 
laws  by  hoodwinking  not  only  our  legislators,  but  also  our  courts  and  a 
large  part  of  our  people  with  its  three  great  falsehoods : 

(1)  That  compulsory  vaccination  is  absolutely  necessary  for  the 

52 


prevention  of  smallpox  epidemics  and  is  the  only  known  remedy 
therefor. 

(2)  That  Sanitation,  Isolation  and  Hygiene  have  no  influence  what- 
ever in  preventing  or  controlling  smallpox. 

(3)  That  vaccination  is  perfectly  safe  and  harmless  and  never 
causes  any  injury  or  death. 

I have  already  demonstrated  what  dangerous  and  criminal  false- 
hoods all  of  these  propositions  are  and  need  say  nothing  further  on  that 
point  here,  but  any  person  of  common  sense  can  see  that  when  we  have 
the  same  set  of  men  in  full  control  of  our  health  departments  and  vital 
statistics  who  are  also  engaged  in  the  practice  and  profit  of  vaccination, 
and  when  these  men  have  thus  full  power  and  a direct  interest  to  deny 
and  conceal  injuries  and  deaths  from  vaccination  and  other  medical 
operations  in  death  certificates  and  yearly  reports  we  obviously  cannot 
expect  much  reform  in  this  great  medical  evil  and  menace  until  we  put 
able  laymen  at  the  heads  of  these  departments,  who  will  have  no  interest 
in  these  medical  denials  and  concealments,  and  who  will  administer 
these  departments  purely  in  the  interest  of  the  people  and  not  in  the 
interest  of  medical  manufacturers,  medical  societies  and  medical  theories, 
as  I have  already  suggested. 

To  show  what  a gigantic  interest  the  doctors  and  medical  societies 
have  in  our  own  city  government  it  will  be  sufficient  to  consider  these 
figures,  which  have  been  given  by  the  President  of  the  Board  of  Aider- 
men  in  a medical  journal.  There  are  8,100  registered  doctors  in  this 
city  of  New  York,  and  out  of  this  number  nearly  one-quarter  or  1,632 
are  in  the  employment  or  service  of  the  city  which  pays  a million  dollars 
a year  for  this  service ! 

It  is  therefore  obvious  from  all  the  figures  already  given  what  a 
powerful  medical  control  the  people  are  under  unconsciously  to  them- 
selves, and  what  a powerfully  intrenched  and  organized  medical  force 
we  actually  have  in  public  office  in  our  body  politic  in  City  and  State 
which,  under  the  forms  and  appearances  of  looking  after  the  public  in- 
terest only,  is  in  the  strongest  possible  position  to  look  after  the  in- 
terests of  its  own  profession  first  and  to  be  safely  able  to  deny  and  con- 
ceal any  of  the  injurious  or  fatal  effects  of  any  of  the  medical  prac- 
tices, theories,  experiments  or  fads,  which  it  may  be  regularly  prac- 
ticing or  favoring  for  the  time  being.  This  allegation  is,  of  course,  the 
obvious  fact  because  this  organized  medical  force  controls  all  our  health 
departments,  vital  statistics,  death  certificates,  autopsies,  medical  re- 
ports, etc.,  etc.,  and  can,  of  course,  make  any  of  these  records  or  reports 
to  suit  their  medical  dogmas,  theories  or  interests  and  conceal  their  mis- 
takes; and  there  is  no  element  now  in  our  City  or  State  governments 
to  adequately  check  this  dangerous,  evil  and  one-sided  power,  and  will 
not  be  until  we  put  able  laymen  in  office  over  this  gigantic  medical 
interest,  with  honest  doctors  under  them  of  whom  plenty  can  be  found 
in  this  great  profession  who  can  quickly  relieve  the  profession  from 
the  disgrace  which  the  oppressions,  falsehoods  and  malpractices  of 
medical  compulsion  and  domination  have  already  brought  upon  it  all 
over  this  State  and  Nation. 


53 


LETTER  TO  GOVERNOR  WHITMAN  ASKING  VETO  OF 
LOYSTER-TALLETT  BILL 


SINISTER  FACTS  IN  CANVASS  AND  PASSAGE  OF  THIS 
BILL  EXPOSED  AND  CONDEMNED 

Subject : — Final  appeal  to  veto  the  scandalous  and  dangerous  Jones- 

Tallett  Vaccination  Bill. 

Hon.  Charles  S.  Whitman,  Governor , 

Albany,  N.  Y. 

I again  solemnly  urge  upon  you  the  veto  of  the  Jones-Tallett  Vac- 
cination Bill,  as  being  a most  shameful  and  dangerous  piece  of  medical 
legislation,  full  of  medical  craft  and  graft  in  the  interest  of  vaccinators 
and  vaccine  dealers  operating  in  this  State,  and  worth  millions  of  dollars 
to  this  big  medical  interest. 

This  bill  puts  compulsory  vaccination  on  every  school  child  in  this 
State,  whether  in  big  cities  or  country  districts,  and  whether  in  public, 
private  or  parochial  schools,  whereas  the  present  law  applies  to  public 
schools  only.  It  has  been  falsely  and  foully  represented  from  the  first 
as  applying  only  in  case  of  actual  epidemics  and  as  not  applying  to  the 
City  of  New  York  at  all!  Many  members  of  the  Senate  and  Assembly 
from  New  York  City  seem  to  have  voted  for  the  bill  on  this  false 
representation,  into  which  they  have  been  misled  by  some  person  or 
persons.  Such  fraud,  and  deceit,  I believe  to  be  a crime  under  Section 
1327  of  the  Penal  Code,  and  whoever  may  be  guilty  of  such  a crime 
should  be  convicted  and  punished,  if  possible,  under  due  process  of 
law.  Some  evidence  on  this  head  has  already  been  placed  before  you, 
and  I believe  that  this  fact  alone  of  gross  deception  in  the  canvass  and 
passage  of  this  bill  should  cause  you  to  veto  the  bill  as  a legal  outrage 
and  scandal  in  our  legislation. 

In  addition  to  this  evidence  of  probable  fraud  or  deceit  in  the 
passage  of  this  bill,  its  enforcement,  if  it  is  made  a law,  on  our  little 
school  children  would  be  most  dangerous  to  health  and  life  and  would 
result  in  many  deaths  every  year.  I have  already  clearly  proved  to  you 
that  the  school  age  is  most  immune  to  smallpox  and  has  the  highest 
vitality  and  lowest  death-rate  from  all  causes  of  any  age-class  in  the 
population,  and  therefore  needs  alleged  protection  from  smallpox  less 
than  any  other  class,  and  that  men  of  voting  age,  legislators  and  voters, 
are  five  times  more  subject  to  smallpox  and  five  times  more  in  need  of 
vaccination  than  school  children,  yet  no  one  has  attempted  to  put  com- 
pulsory vaccination  on  this  manful  age,  able  to  bear  it  with  less  danger 

54 


than  children;  but,  with  shameful  medical  and  legislative  ignorance  and 
cowardice,  this  evil  has  been  put  only  on  our  little  school  children, 
under  the  false  teachings  and  urgings  of  our  medical  societies,  health 
officials,  vaccinating  doctors  and  vaccine  mongers,  who  profit  immensely 
by  the  enforcement  of  such  evil  laws. 

I have  also  shown  you  that  vaccination  is  simply  the  infliction  of 
a dangerous  disease  which,  for  children,  is  more  dangerous  to  health  and 
life  than  natural  smallpox  and  now  actually  kills  more  children  than 
smallpox,  which  fact  is  shamefully  concealed  in  our  vital  statistics, 
but  is  clearly  proved  in  every  yearly  Report  of  the  highest  statistical 
authority  in  the  world,  the  Registrar-General  of  England. 

This  shameful  bill  also  pretends  to  make  the  enforcement  of  vac- 
cination less  rigid  in  our  country  districts  than  in  our  big  cities,  under 
the  false  idea  that  cities  are  more  subject  to  smallpox  than  country 
districts  as  a whole.  But  this  is  another  shameful  falsehood  of  the  men 
— some  of  whom  are  in  our  State  Department  of  Health — who  are 
responsible  for  the  drafting  of  this  false  and  evil  bill.  On  the  contrary, 
the  country  districts,  which  contain  less  than  half  the  population  of 
this  State  have  almost  always  many  more  cases  of  smallpox  than  the 
City  of  New  York,  which  contains  more  than  half  the  population  of  the 
State.  So  much  is  this  the  fact  that  the  cases  of  smallpox  in  the 
country  districts  outside  of  New  York  City  are  usually  five  or  ten 
times  more  every  year  than  in  New  York  City.  Furthermore,  small- 
pox is,  in  fact,  more  of  a country  disease  than  a city  disease,  occurring 
most  where  there  are  paper  and  rag  mills  and  industries  dealing  with 
animal  textures,  wool,  hair,  and  hides,  and  with  farm  filth  and  domestic 
animals,  etc.,  and  where  there  are  lumber  camps  and  “bunk  houses”  of 
railroad  and  other  laborers,  with  great  human  overcrowding  and  gross 
unsanitary  conditions  which  are  absent  in  the  cities;  and  in  fact,  most  of 
the  cases  of  smallpox  found  in  the  cities  come  from  the  country.  The 
shameful  falsehood  here  refuted  is  therefore  only  one  of  many  similar 
falsehoods  constantly  forced  by  the  ignorant  and  reckless  vaccinators 
in  our  health  departments  and  medical  societies  on  the  Legislature  and 
the  People  of  this  State;  and  on  such  falsehoods  all  vaccination  legis- 
lation like  that  in  this  evil  Tallett  Bill  has  been  based. 

Under  these  facts  and  circumstances  I therefore  submit  to  the 
Governor  of  this  State,  as  a last  appeal  for  Right  and  Truth  and  Justice 
in  this  matter,  that  the  enactment  of  this  false  and  evil  Jones-Tallett 
Bill  into  Law  would  be  a medical  crime  on  the  people  of  this  State; 
and  I shall  therefore  hope  that  the  Governor  will  be  in  no  way  respons- 
ible for  this  crime  by  signing  or  approving  this  scandalous  piece  of 
legislation. 

Respectfully  submitted, 

CHAS.  M.  HIGGINS, 

Treasurer  Anti-Vaccination  League  of  America. 

271  Ninth  Street,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y., 

March  31,  1915. 


55 


THE  HEARING  BEFORE  THE  GOVERNOR 


(March  29th,  1915) 

To  show  how  this  evil  Tallett  Bill  has  been  falsely  represented 
from  the  outset  so  as  to  win  votes  on  this  false  basis  to  rush  it  through 
the  legislature,  as  referred  to  in  the  above  letter  and  at  the  hearing 
before  the  Governor,  it  may  suffice  to  state  that  from  the  first  it  has 
been  boldly  represented  as  providing  for  enforced  vaccination  only  in 
case  of  actual  epidemics  and  only  in  such  epidemic  districts,  and  that 
the  law  did  not  apply  at  all  to  big  cities  like  New  York,  whereas  it 
was  not  at  all  limited  to  epidemics  and  applied  constantly  in  all  big  cities. 
To  prove  how  well  this  gross  deception  has  worked,  I here  give  a 
verbatim  copy  of  a letter  written  by  my  own  local  Assemblyman,  Hon. 
William  T.  Simpson,  of  the  Twelfth  Assembly  District  in  Brooklyn, 
where  I reside,  to  a neighbor  in  the  same  district. 

ASSEMBLY  CHAMBER 
State  of  New  York 
Albany 

March  8th,  1915. 

Mr.  Stephen  McNamee, 

225  14th  Street, 

Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

Dear  Sir: 

Your  favor  of  the  4th  instant  at  hand  and  was  received  my  me  on 
my  return  to  Albany  to-day.  In  reply  thereto  beg  to  say  that  the 
Tallett  Bill,  to  which  you  refer,  did  not  affect  the  City  of  New  York  in 
any  manner  and  for  that  reason  was  not  opposed  by  City  members. 

I thank  you  for  your  favor  and  will  place  the  same  in  my  file. 

Yours  very  truly, 

(Signed)  Wm.  T.  Simpson, 
Assemblyman. 

From  this  shocking  letter  it  is  plain  that  Mr.  Simpson  and  many 
other  members  from  the  city,  in  both  Senate  and  Assembly,  voted  for 
this  bill  with  the  idea  that  it  had  no  reference  to  the  City  whatever 
and  that  they  did  this  evidently  on  the  mere  statement  and  request  of 
somebody  to  vote  for  the  bill  without  ever  having  read  or  studied  the 
bill  or  the  letters  sent  from  constituents  warning  them  of  the  real 
nature  of  the  bill.  Now  surely  the  making  of  law  is  the  highest  and 

56 


most  sacred  function  that  can  be  exercised  by  any  man  or  official, 
much  more  sacred  and  important  even  than  the  work  of  the  Judiciary 
in  the  interpretation  of  law  or  the  work  of  the  Executive  in  the  enforce- 
ment of  law,  and  surely  here  is  a shocking  sample  of  how  some  laws 
are  passed  and  how  the  most  sacred  of  all  official  functions  is  some- 
times exercised  under  political  “deals,”  “combinations,”  or  sinister  in- 
fluences, and  particularly  through  gross  neglect  of  legislators  to  clearly 
know  what  they  are  voting  for  before  they  vote,  as  seems  to  have 
existed  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Simpson  and  others. 

MR.  TALLETTS  SHOCKING  LETTER 

A more  shocking  example  yet  of  blind  or  deceptive  legislation  is 
found  in  this  letter  from  Mr.  Tallett  himself  to  a voter  in  Brooklyn,  in 
which  he  shows  complete  ignorance  of  the  real  nature  and  scope  of  his 
own  bill,  or  rather  Mr.  Loyster’s  bill,  which  he  introduced  in  the 
Assembly,  and  in  which  it  will  be  seen  he  states  in  a postscript,  written 
in  by  his  own  hand,  that  the  bill  does  not  apply  to  New  York  City  at 
all,  whereas  it,  of  course,  applied,  as  any  tyro  in  legislation  could  see  at 
a glance,  positively  and  particularly  to  New  York  and  other  big  cities. 

ASSEMBLY  CHAMBER 
State,  of  New  York 
Albany 

January  29th,  1915. 

Mr.  Percy  Gianella, 

608  Fifth  Street, 

Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

My  Dear  Mr.  Gianella : 

I have  your  favor  of  the  28th  instant  and  enclose  copy  of  Assem- 
bly Bill  No.  125,  which  will  explain  itself.  This  bill  is  introduced  for 
the  purpose  of  modifying  the  present  vaccination  law  relative  to  chil- 
dren in  public  schools. 

Yours  very  truly, 

(Signed)  Morrell  E.  Tallett. 

MET’EFG 

Enclosure  (Written  in  by  hand) 

This  law  does  not  apply  in  Greater  New  York.  New  York  City 
has  its  own  Public  Health  and  Public  Education  laws. 


57 


When  Mr.  Tallett  was  confronted  with  this  letter  at  the  hearing 
before  the  Governor  this  is  what  he  said,  according  to  the  record  of 
the  Hearing: 

“When  it  (his  Bill)  was  introduced  I was  told  that  New  York 
City  had  its  own  law  in  regard  to  the  education  business  and  that  this 
wouldn’t  affect  it.” 

Now,  who  it  was  that  misled  Mr.  Tallett  and  other  legislators  with 
this  stupid  and  dangerous  falsehood  does  not  yet  appear,  but  I think 
it  is  evident  from  the  disgraceful  facts  above  shown  how  easy  it  may 
be  for  the  highly  organized  medical  powers  in  this  State  not  only  to 
fool  but  to  tool  some  of  our  legislators  into  possibly  getting  most  any 
kind  of  a bill  through  to  suit  these  medical  interests,  without  the  actual 
knowledge  or  consciousness  of  these  legislators  as  to  what  they  are 
really  doing,  as  seems  to  have  been  actually  the  case  with  the  Loyster- 
Tallett  Bill. 

To  add  to  this  shocking  exhibit,  I now  give  an  extract  from  the 
manly  letter  of  the  Senator  from  my  own  local  district,  Hon.  William 
B.  Carswell,  of  Brooklyn,  which  shows  another  evil  feature  in  the  pas- 
sage of  the  Loyster  Bill,  in  that  his  own  vote  was  actually  recorded  for 
this  bill  while  absent  without  his  knowledge  or  consent  and  positively 
against  his  intentions  and  orders,  and  I have  reason  to  think  that  this 
is  not  the  only  example  of  such  false  record  in  the  vote  on  this  Bill. 


William  B.  Carswell, 

6th  District. 

THE  SENATE  OF 
The  State  of  New  York 
Albany 

61  Broadway,  New  York  City,  N.  Y.,  June  10th,  1915. 

Mr.  Charles  M.  Higgins, 

271  9th  Street, 

Brooklyn,  New  York. 

Dear  Mr.  Higgins: 

I am  in  receipt  of  your  favor  of  the  8th  inst.,  in  regard  to  my 
vote  on  the  Tallett  Bill.  From  it  I learn  for  the  first  time,  that  I am 
recorded  in  favor  of  that  measure.  I am  and  was  opposed  to  the 
measure  and  my  views  underwent  no  change.  I not  only  advised  you 
and  several  others  that  I was  against  the'  bill,  but  Senator  Jones,  who 
handled  the  matter  in  the  Senate,  was  informed  by  me  on  the  several 

58 


occasions  he  solicited  my  vote  for  the  bill,  that  I was  against  it.  I am 
erroneously  recorded  in  favor  of  the  measure  through  some  mistake  of 
the  clerk  at  the  desk,  or  the  copy  of  the  roll  call  has  been  incorrectly 
made  out. 

********** 

Trusting  I make  myself  clear  in  the  foregoing,  I am,  with  best 
wishes, 

Very  truly  yours, 

WBC/D  (Signed)  Wm.  B.  Carswell. 

All  these  facts  as  given  above  surely  make  a most  disgraceful 
record  of  improper  legislative  methods  under  which  the  Loyster  Bill 
was  passed  which  speak  loudly  for  themselves  and  need  no  further  com- 
ment here,  and  I now  submit  these  facts  for  the  information,  criticism 
and  judgment  of  the  people  of  this  State  as  a public  duty  under  the 
circumstances. 


GOVERNOR  WHITMAN’S  MISTAKE 

I now  have  to  add,  with  regret,  how  I believe  the  Governor  neg- 
lected or  shirked  his  clear  duty  to  consider  all  the  facts  we  placed  before 
him  at  the  hearing  on  this  evil  Loyster  Bill,  and  how  he  failed  to  use 
his  own  judgment  on  these  facts  but  deferred  judgment  on  the  whole 
subject  to  the  Commissioners  of  Health,  who,  of  course,  are  profes- 
sionally interested  in  and  committed  to  the  whole  subject  of  vaccination 
and  cannot  possibly  be  considered  impartial  or  proper  judges  in  the 
matter.  We  will  now  let  the  Governor’s  own  words  speak  for  him,  as 
taken  from  the  official  records  of  the  Hearing,  in  answer  to  our  counsel, 
Hon.  Charles  F.  Murphy,  of  Brooklyn. 

THE  GOVERNOR:  Don’t  you  think  the  Governor  is  obliged,  or 
rather  justified  in  looking  to  the  Health  Department  of  State  and  City 
in  a matter  that  is  so  peculiarly  within  its  jurisdiction  as  this  matter? 
I am  not  in  a position  myself  to  decide  as  to  whether  vaccination  is  a 
good  thing  or  not.  It  didn’t  work  very  well  with  me. 

MR.  MURPHY : And  that  is  just  why  I agree  with  you.  It  didn’t 
work  well  with  me,  either,  Governor. 

THE  GOVERNOR:  Here  is  the  Health  Department  of  the  City, 
at  the  head  of  which  is  a man  of  national  reputation,  and  whose  opinion 
on  questions  like  this  ought  to  carry  great  weight  anywhere;  and  the 
Health  Department  of  the  State,  whose  Commissioner  is  a man  of 

59 


standing  and  a man  who  has  done  a great  work  there,  and  is  doing 
great  work  there  now.  I do  not  feel  as  though  I ought  to  pass  on  that 
question.  The  Health  Department  should  do  it. 

This  illustrates  clearly  how  the  average  legislator  and  the  average 
executive  treats  the  whole  subject  of  vaccination  whenever  it  is  brought 
officially  before  them.  Instead  of  considering  the  actual  facts  of 
the  matter  as  the  highest  possible  authority,  and  considering  the 
whole  subject  carefully  on  their  own  account  from  these  basic  facts,  they 
will  usually,  in  a thoughtless,  cowardly  or  shirking  way,  defer  to  so-called 
medical  authorities  which  have  a professional  interest  and  bias  of  the 
strongest  kind  on  one  side  only  of  this  subject.  Now,  how  an  eminent 
lawyer  like  Governor  Whitman  could  make  such  a logical  and  judicial 
mistake  as  this  would  be  very  strange  did  we  not  know  by  long  experi- 
ence that  it  is  so  very  common  with  Governors  and  Legislators  who 
are  good  lawyers  to  act  like  very  bad  lawyers  and  poor  judges  when  this 
complex  subject  of  vaccination  comes  up,  which  they  will  persist  in 
failing  to  study  for  themselves  and  get  the  real  facts  of  the  matter  on 
both  sides  into  their  “lay”  and  unprejudiced  minds,  as  should  be  the 
case  with  every  true  “juryman”  sitting  on  any  contested  matter  of  facts. 
And  surely  Governor  Whitman  is  enough  of  a lawyer  to  know  that, 
under  our  fundamental  laws,  our  whole  legal  system  is  based  on  the 
proposition  that  the  common  layman  or  juryman  is  perfectly  competent 
to  consider  facts  and  give  his  legal  decision  on  them  and  that  the  ordin- 
ary intelligent  layman  having  no  personal,  selfish,  business  or  profes- 
sional interest  in  the  subject  at  hand  is,  as  a matter  of  law,  supreme  in 
his  judgment  on  these  contested  facts,  and  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
man  who  has  a business  or  professional  interest  in  a subject  like  vac- 
cination (as  our  doctors  and  health  officials  have)  is  just  the  very  man 
who  should  not  be  asked  to  judicially  or  legally  decide  any  such  subject; 
and  yet  that  is  the  very  mistake  that  the  eminent  lawyer,  Governor 
Whitman,  made  in  this  case,  which  is  contrary  to  all  the  legal  logic  and 
equity  on  which  all  our  great  jury  and  court  system  is  based.  To  there- 
fore defer  the  question  of  the  propriety  of  any  vaccination  law  to  the  men 
directly  interested  in  forcing  vaccination  on  the  people  is  just  about  as 
logical  and  judicial  as  if  an  ordinary  trial  judge  and  jury  should  con- 
clude they  were  “incompetent”  to  pass  on  the  “law”  and  “facts”  in- 
volved in  the  case  before  them  and  should  abdicate  and  turn  over  the 
whole  case  to  the  lawyer  for  the  defendant  to  settle  as  he  thought  best  1 
If  Thomas  Jefferson  had  submitted  his  great  Declaration  of  Liberty  to 
the  lords  and  aristrocrats  of  England  for  approval  before  he  submitted 

60 


it  to  the  people  of  this  country,  or  if  Abraham  Lincoln  had  first  sub- 
mitted his  Emancipation  Proclamation  to  Jefferson  Davis  and  the 
slave-holders  of  the  South  for  their  approval,  it  would  have  been  just 
about  as  reasonable,  logical,  judicial  and  lawyer-like  as  for  Governor 
Whitman  to  defer  any  question  of  compulsory-vaccination-law  for  final 
decision  to  Commissioner  Biggs  or  Commissioner  Goldwater,  or  any 
other  vaccinating  doctor  in  this  State. 

We  have  great  hope  and  faith,  however,  that  the  Governor  will 
never  again  make  the  mistake  that  was  made  in  this  case,  if  he  once 
studies  and  absorbs  the  medical,  statistical  and  legal  facts  now  given 
to  the  public  in  this  little  pamphlet  on  this  great  and  complex  subject 
of  vaccination. 


NEW  LAW  SUGGESTED  FOR  REPEAL  AND  PROHIBITION 
OF  ALL  COMPULSORY  VACCINATION 

The  next  Legislature  should  make  a full  repeal  of  the  present  evil 
Loyster  Law  by  passing  some  such  law  as  that  suggested  below,  which 
prohibits  all  compulsory  vaccination,  and  the  parents  of  the  two  and 
a quarter  millions  of  school  children  in  this  State  should  strongly  urge 
the  passage  of  this  law  by  their  representatives  in  the  next  Legislature. 

PROPOSED  LAW  PROHIBITING  AND  PENALIZING  COM- 
PULSORY, COERCIVE  OR  FORCED  VACCINATION  OR 
INOCULATION  IN  THE  STATE  OF  NEW  YORK 

No  form  of  vaccination  or  inoculation  shall  be  imposed  upon  any 
person  by  any  form  of  force,  intimidation,  or  coercion,  against  free  will 
and  consent,  and  no  child  or  minor  shall  be  subjected  to  any  form  of 
vaccination  or  inoculation  without  the  free  consent  of  parents  or  guard- 
ians. All  doctors,  health  officers  or  other  persons,  in  attempting  or 
offering  to  vaccinate  or  inoculate  any  child  or  other  person,  must  first 
carefully  explain  to  such  person,  or  to  the  parents  or  guardians  of  such 
child  or  minor,  that  the  proposed  vaccination  or  inoculation  is  in  no 
way  compulsory,  and  will  not  be  performed  if  objected  to  by  such 
person,  parent  or  guardian. 

No  form  of  vaccination  or  inoculation  shall  be  made  a condition 
for  admission  to  any  public  or  private  school  or  college  in  the  State  or 
for  the  exercise  of  any  other  right  or  privilege  of  any  citizen,  tax- 
payer or  other  person  in  the  State. 


61 


A violation  of  any  of  these  provisions  shall  be  punishable  by  a 
fine  of  from  five  hundred  to  one  thousand  dollars,  or  imprisonment  for 
from  one  to  two  years,  or  by  both  fine  and  imprisonment  at  the  discre- 
tion of  the  Court. 

All  existing  laws  or  parts  of  laws  inconsistent  with  these  provisions 
are  hereby  repealed. 

This  Act  shall  take  effect  immediately. 

OTHER  REFORMS  SUGGESTED 
FOR  ATTENTION  OF  PARENTS  AND  SCHOOL  OFFICERS 

The  parents  of  the  two  or  more  millions  of  school  children  in  this 
State  who  pay  the  taxes  for  the  support  of  the  most  extensive  and  most 
expensive  function  of  our  State  and  City  governments,  viz.,  Public  Edu- 
cation, should  now  unite  in  making  a general  demand  upon  or  remon- 
strance to  our  educational  officials  of  State  and  City  for  a proper 
protection  of  the  most  sacred  rights  of  our  most  precious  possession,  the 
children  of  school  age,  who  form  one-quarter  of  our  whole  population, 
which  remonstrance  should  take  some  such  form  as  stated  in  the  fol- 
lowing propositions : 

First:  To  give  expression  to  some  proper  criticism  of  our  State  De- 
partment of  Education  for  its  mistake  in  blindly  accepting  gross  and 
dangerous  medical  and  statistical  falsehoods  issued  by  the  State  De- 
partment of  Health  in  its  bulletin  of  February,  1914,  on  the  subjects 
of  smallpox  and  vaccination  and  adopted  in  the  vaccination  order  of 
Deputy  Commissioner  Finegan,  sent  to  all  school  districts,  dated 
March  20,  1914,  and  for  the  failure  of  this  great  Department  of  Edu- 
cation to  properly  protect  the  two  millions  of  school  children  in  this 
State  from  this  great  medical  superstition  and  danger  of  compulsory 
disease  as  an  alleged  mode  of  producing  public  health,  but  which  is 
far  more  dangerous  to  school  children  than  natural  smallpox,  and  has 
killed  30  or  more  children  in  this  State  in  1914. 

Second:  To  express  a proper  censure  of  Deputy  Commissioner  Fine- 
gan for  his  apparently  illegal  and  intimidating  order  of  March  20,  1914, 
to  the  local  trustees  throughout  the  State,  forcing  them  to  compel 
vaccination  of  school  children,  contrary  to  their  own  legal  discretion 
in  this  matter  and  in  violation  of  the  decision  of  Commissoner  Draper 
recognizing  this  discretion  in  the  local  school  officers  in  the  case  of 
the  town  of  Olean  in  1912,  which  order  has  resulted  in  the  deaths  of 
many  children  all  over  the  State  from  this  forced  vaccination. 

Third:  To  carefully  consider  the  legal  question  whether  the  De- 

62 


partment  of  Education  or  the  State  government  is  not  liable  to  parents 
for  the  deaths  of  their  children  killed  by  vaccination  thus  coercively 
forced  upon  them;  and 

Fourth:  To  consider  whether  doctors  and  health  officials  perform- 
ing these  fatal  vaccinations — under  the  false  representation  that  the 
operation  is  safe  and  harmless,  instead  of  being  actually,  in  all  cases,  the 
infliction  on  the  healthy  human  body  of  a potentially  dangerous  disease 
of  blood  poisoning  known  as  purulent  infection  and  septicemia — are 
not  liable  for  both  civil  and  criminal  prosecutions. 

Fifth:  To  secure  a public  investigation  of  our  health  departments 
to  expose  their  constant  denial  and  concealments  of  deaths  from  vac- 
cination and  consequent  falsification  of  our  vital  statistics. 

Sixth:  To  consider  the  passage  of  a special  Act  of  the  Legislature 
to  indemnify  parents  for  the  destruction  of  health  or  loss  of  life  of 
their  children  caused  b^  compulsory  disease  illegally  forced  on  them  by 
agents  of  the  State  or  City  under  the  false  representation  and  criminal 
malpractice  that  such  act  of  compulsory  disease  was  necessary  for  their 
health,  or  the  health  of  the  State,  and  that  it  was  entirely  safe  and 
harmless,  or,  as  expressed  in  the  actual  words  of  the  State  Department 
of  Health  in  its  Bulletin  of  February,  1914,  that  “There  is  not  the 
slightest  risk  in  the  process  of  vaccination,”  etc.,  which  false  and 
dangerous  statement  we  believe  to  be  actually  a crime  on  the  people 
of  this  State  and  would  justify  a public  request  for  the  removal  of 
its  authors  from  office. 

Seventh:  To  urge  a proper  public  investigation  of  the  medical  graft 
in  the  practice  of  vaccination  and  sale  of  virus  in  this  State,  to  show 
how  much  is  paid  for  vaccination  and  for  virus  by  the  State  or  by 
towns  and  cities  or  school  districts,  and  who  get  this  pay. 

Eighth : To  secure  the  passage  of  a new  law  which  will  remove 
all  vaccinating  doctors  and  members  of  medical  societies  from  the 
heads  of  our  departments  of  health  and  vital  statistics  and  put  in  their 
places  able  and  eminent  laymen  having  no  interest  in  medical  practices 
or  concealments,  same  as  now  exists  in  England,  where  the  Registrar- 
General  and  Minister  of  Health  are  both  eminent  laymen,  and  where  the 
vital  statistics  are  known  to  be  the  most  full  and  reliable  in  the  world 
and  where  deaths  from  vaccination  are  not  concealed  but  are  reported 
regularly  every  year,  showing  in  many  years  greater  mortality  than  from 
smallpox. 


63 


PROTEST  OF  PARENTS  TO  BOARD  OF  REGENTS  AND 
DEPARTMENT  OF  EDUCATION 

All  parents  of  school  children  in  the  State  who  are  opposed  to 
compulsory  vaccination,  and  particularly  all  parents  whose  children 
have  been  injured  or  killed  by  vaccination  forced  upon  them  within  the 
last  two  years,  should  write  a strong  personal  letter  of  remonstrance 
to  the  Board  of  Regents,  or  to  the  State  Department  of  Education,  at 
Albany,  protesting  against  the  longer  continuance  of  this  barbarous 
medical  evil  of  compulsory  disease  on  our  State  schools  as  a condition 
for  education  therein,  and  particularly  for  the  failure  of  our  high 
school  officials  to  protect  the  children  from  this  evil  long  ago  and  for 
supinely  accepting  the  dangerous  and  stupid  medical  falsehoods  on 
which  this  evil  has  been  based.  The  blind  acceptance  of  such  false- 
hoods is  an  actual  disgrace  to  the  mental  acumen  of  men  capable  of  any 
independent  judgment  or  of  investigating  facts  for  themselves,  by  which 
they  could  soon  be  convinced  of  the  needlessness  of  compulsory  vaccin- 
ation for  school  children  and  of  its  awful  danger  to  their  health  and  life. 
This  great  danger  is  clearly  shown  when  at  least  ten  times  more  children 
are  killed  every  year,  directly  or  indirectly,  by  vaccination  than  by 
smallpox,  against  which  the  vaccination  is  directed  and  to  which  dis- 
ease children  of  school  age  are  naturally  more  immune  than  any  other 
element  in  the  population. 

These  parental  letters  of  protest  should  be  addressed,  “To  the 
Board  of  Regents,  Albany,  N.  Y.,”  or,  “To  the  State  Department  oi 
Education,  Albany,  N.  Y.” 

It  should  be  remembered  that  the  Board  of  Regents  (twelve  in 
number)  control  the  entire  Public  School  System  of  the  State  and  ap- 
point the  Commissioner  of  Education,  the  chief  officer  of  the  Depart- 
ment of  Education,  who  serves  at  the  pleasure  of  the  said  Board  ol 
Regents. 

PAMPHLETS  FOR  SALE 


We  have  bought  several  thousand  of  Mr.  Loyster's  valuable  pam- 
phlet entitled  “Vaccination  Results  In  New  York  State  in  1914”  foi 
circulation  at  cost.  This  pamphlet  shows  the  deaths  of  nearly  thirty 
children  from  vaccination  in  1914,  including  Mr.  Loyster's  own  son, 
with  portraits  and  detailed  description.  These  deaths  were  the  result 
of  the  illegal  vaccination  crusade  forced  on  the  schools  of  the  State  by 
the  ill-advised  and  untenable  order  of  Dr.  Finegan,  Deputy  Com- 
missioner of  Education,  dated  March  20,  1914,  issued  under  the 
illegal  dictation  of  the  State  Department  of  Health,  and  upon  its  false 
and  dangerous  advices  that  such  forced  vaccination  was  necessary  for 
the  health  of  children  and  was  perfectly  safe  and  harmless,  which 
dangerous  orders  and  false  advices,  with  their  fatal  effects,  should 
become  the  subject  for  public  investigation  and  rebuke  of  all  the 
State  officials  responsible  for  them. 

Price  of  the  Loyster  pamphlet  by  mail,  ten  cents  each 
Copies  of  the  present  pamphlet,  “The  Crime  Against  The  School 
Child,”  will  be  mailed  upon  request.  Price,  ten  cents  each. 

64 


P.  J.  COLLISON  & CO 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 


THE  CRIME  AGAINST 
THE  SCHOOL  CHILD 


Compulsory  Vaccination 
Illegal  and  Criminal  and 
N on-enforceable  Upon  the 

People 

How  to  Legally  Defeat  this  Medical  Evil 
Which  Now  Kills  More  Children 
than  Smallpox 

Advice  to  Parents  and  School  Officers  With 
Legal  Defenses  Against  All 
Compulsory  Vaccination 

By 

CHAS.  M.  HIGGINS 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 

J9I5 


